national birdwatch – Owlnature

The national birdwatch 2019 in Finland (& pics today)

On Saturday, yesterday, I took part in the national birdwatch again, the national birdwatch 2019, Pihabongaus 2019, organized by BirdLife Suomi here in Finland. It was my fourth time now and I was standing and walking in our garden again. As usual, I had a good time and I was freezing at the end of the event even though I had warm clothes on. 🙂 But it was only -9 degrees Celsius, they said that it felt like -14 degrees, during my birdwatch hour.

So, I saw… a lot of snow and it was snowing a bit, too. Well, as always, I heard many little birds singing, singing in the trees, but I didn’t see that many birds. I recognized the voices of great tits and blue tits and crows. And I saw a magpie, a great spotted woodpecker, a few great tits and I heard and saw a flock of tree sparrows as well. The great spotted woodpecker was pecking at a pine tree and it was nice to watch it with binoculars. One great tit came to perform a solo in front of me, that was funny.

So that was what happened. 🙂

And just a few pictures that I took in our garden today:

We have around 30 centimetres of snow here where I’m living. I suspect that we have more than 30 centimetres… It’s been snowing like every day now – sometimes more, sometimes just a little bit. And they say that it will still be snowing.

The sky is blue!

…and at night the snow is still blue, too. 😉 This was bad after 1.30 am today.

Leena

The national birdwatch 2018 in Finland & other things…

The temperatures have temporarily gone up. First we had a pretty heavy snowfall on Wednesday, we had about 10 centimetres of fresh snow on the ground in the evening that day. But after that it’s been even raining, raining like crazy for a while, but it still didn’t melt all the snow, so, here where I’m living, we’ve had snow on the ground for seven weeks now. And they say that the temperatures are going down again and that it will snow again. Today it’s already been sleeting and snowing, and heavily and very big snowflakes, too.

My morning coffee today. I love maps… I take every opportunity to have a map to look at, any map, everywhere… 🙂

And yes, today I took again part in the national birdwatch, the national birdwatch 2018, Pihabongaus 2018, organized by BirdLife Suomi here in Finland. The event is every year on the last weekend of January, it’s not a competition, just one hour of birdwatching, and anyone can participate. The idea is to get people interested in the nature around them and to collect information about the birds living here in wintertime. And even hearing the birds counts.

One of the birds’ hideouts… (I took these last two pictures in this blog post after my birdwatch hour.) So, during my hour I was standing and walking in heavy snowfall and in normal snowfall in our garden. And I heard a concert again! – The voices were many, but, again, I didn’t see that many singers. 🙂

I recognized the voices of crows, magpies, great tits and blue tits and I think I recognized the voice of a some type of sparrow and the voice of a bullfinch – I really was lucky enough to see a few bullfinches here on our bird feeder the other day! 🙂 And I heard a woodpecker knocking somewhere near (I’ve seen two great spotted woodpeckers hear earlier). There always are also some other tiny birds chirping and singing, but I still don’t recognize them…

And the birds I actually saw today: a couple of magpies, one great tit and a flock of small birds – I couldn’t see what birds they were.

So, I was enjoying myself and my hour ended just before my freezing point. 😀

My birdwatching trail…

-Leena

The national birdwatch 2017 in Finland – Pihabongaus 2017

I took part in the national birdwatch 2017, Pihabongaus 2017, organized by BirdLife Suomi here in Finland. The event is every year on the last weekend of January. It’s not a competition and anyone can do it – the idea is to get people interested in the nature around them and to collect information about the birds living here in wintertime. We are just identifying birds, counting them and enjoying ourselves. It takes one hour. And it doesn’t matter if one doesn’t see any birds or if one only hears them – that’s interesting, too. Only hearing the birds is delightful – that’s my experience. 🙂 Last winter 18 000 people took part in the event, it’s interesting to hear how many people this winter.

Okay, I was enjoying myself and I was freezing! 😀 The sun was shining but the wind was cold. I was thinking about my cardigan before I went outside, but I didn’t take it with me. But my toes were soon freezing too, and I had woollen socks…

Yes, but, my actual results… I heard a concert! 😀 Birds were singing all around me as they always do in and around our garden, but I didn’t see the singers. I recognized the voices of magpies, great tits and blue tits. There were also some other tiny birds singing, but I didn’t recognize them. But yes, I actually saw a couple of ravens! They flew above me, croaking as they went. 🙂

We have this feeding spot for birds, hanging from a garden lamp post. We’ve seen many great tits and blue tits there, but not today…
And it’s occasionally been so warm lately that the snow’s been melting fast…

“So, you count the birds once a year? Cool! I do it every day.”

And this happened yesterday. The pine trees were steaming. It always looks rather interesting. 🙂 Yeah, with the temperatures going up and down constantly lately it’s good to let some steam off…

-Leena