July 12: James Lidster on his recently concluded tour, Estonia in Spring: Migration along the Baltic Sea
The thought of watching Arctic migration while wearing a t-shirt and sunglasses wasn’t one that crossed my mind prior to this tour, but that’s exactly what we did! In fact with almost everything we did we were treated to beautiful blue skies and windless days.
And if we were concerned that the nice weather might be too nice for seawatching we needn’t have been….as on our first morning we saw over 1000 loons migrating. Loose groups above and below the horizon and sometimes right above our heads, absolutely brilliant.
At the same time we could hear displaying Long-tailed Ducks and Common Scoters, had to duck when the Mute Swans flew past and also saw Tundra Swans, hundreds of Barnacle Geese and a great selection of migrants including Eurasian Hobby (that caught a Reed Bunting over the sea), Bohemian Waxwings, European Serin, Wood Sandpipers and Eurasian Whimbrel. And that all before lunch on the first day!
With such a multitude of prey on offer we weren't disappointed with our raptor sightings either, ranging from White-tailed and Lesser Spotted Eagles to Montagu's Harrier and this Northern Goshawk.
On the final morning we explored a local marsh where both Thrush Nightingale and Penduline Tits were not only plentiful but also very obliging.
The migration theme continued throughout the tour and our final totals of Barnacle, Eurasian White-fronted and Tundra Bean Geese all numbered in the thousands (if not tens of thousands). The goose highlight of the tour was undoubtedly the adult Red-breasted Goose among thousands of Barnacles, although the sight of a flock of White-fronted Geese migrating over Tallinn during our last day sight-seeing walk seemed to sum up the whole trip.
We had a few early starts to get out into the forest on time, essential if we wanted to see Western Capercaillie and Black Grouse, and neither disappointed with a great encounter with a group of displaying ‘Capers’, with the males running at each other and splaying their tails.
Nearby we watched and listened to bubbling Black Grouse, while Whooper Swans bugled and the sky was full of the sound of displaying Northern Lapwing and Eurasian Skylarks, just magical! Elsewhere in the forest pride of place went to two different Ural Owls we saw.
Woodpeckers were well represented with Black, Grey-headed, Middle spotted (below) and White-backed all being seen very well, as well as several encounters with Eurasian Wryneck.
The nice weather meant we also got to enjoy an evening boat trip to the south of Matsalu Bay, complete with homemade Estonian stew, local liqueur, hot coffee and best of all an incredibly obliging Eurasian Elk (Moose) and several European Beavers.
Posted: July 12, 2016