Finland And Estonia - Spring 2025

With my parents in situ here for a couple of weeks, I took some time off to enjoy a bit of birding with the old man and see if we could get him a tick or two whilst he was over.

We started out on day one with an attempt at my Capercaillie site, but sadly getting a bit late in the spring, and the bird appears to have moved on.

A couple of Red-Breasted Geese popped up nearby early on the visit, so we made the effort for these to ensure a lifer for Don.

Red-Breasted Goose - one of two birds present. The best goose in Europe, and a fantastic lifer for Don.

We then moved on to Laajalahti, to get year tick Caspian Terns and other wetland birds for Don, best of which was this exceptionally tame Lesser Spotted Woodpecker.

Lesser Spotted Woodpecker - always cute little stunners.

It was then time to head for a few days in Estonia.

The boat over was productive as usual, finding a first year male King Eider and seeing various other sea duck species, including several Velvet Scoter and Black-Throated Divers.

On arrival in Estonia, we made straight for a dump outside Tallinn, to explore a bit and see what Estonian Gulling might be like here.

Here we saw our first White Storks doing their thing.

White Stork - always a treat of Estonian Birding

The following day we made for Haeska to look for Geese and Middle Spotted Woodpeckers. We saw lots of good species, including Little Terns, Black Tern, White-Winged Tern, Great White Egret, Bewick's Swan and Hawfinch.

We also encountered numerous Montagu's Harriers around the countryside.

Montagu's Harriers - Male and Female - Estonia still has reasonably healthy populations of these beauties. We saw them in pretty much every area, including over our rental property.

As with my last trip to Estonia, we really struggled with Woodpeckers. Haeska failed to produce the usual Middle-Spotted (even though they were there as recently as March), and other suitable woodlands in the area all failed, including those around the rental house.

Marsh Harrier - another ubiquitous species in Estonia

Birding around the house produced birds like Wryneck, Hawfinch, Marsh Tit and a real surprise, a hybrid Collared x Pied Flycatcher.

Marsh Tit - extremely common in Estonia

White Stork - 5 were in regular attendance around the house.

Collared x Pied Flycatcher - an incredible bird really. At first this appeared besides in full Collared Flycatcher song. It was only on inspection of the bird from rear view images that a narrow stripe on the nape could be seen.

Over the course of our stay it remained in the area, holding territory, and giving other versions of song, some which were mixed singing between Collared and Pied and others which were more pied.

Never saw a female here, but would be interesting to see what exactly he attracts or indeed, what offspring look like.

Puise as usual produced specialities such as Avocet and Shelduck.

Avocet - Rare in Finland, but always available along the Estonian coast at Matsalu. A species that's always fun.

Shelduck - same scenario. Rare in Finland, easy in Estonia.

Great White Egrets - ridiculously common in Estonia, as they will undoubtedly be in Finland in years to come.

We did a day trip south from Matsalu to the Audru Polder and Parnu. A fantastic wetland site, choc-a-bloc full of birds.

Here we saw numerous Citrine Wagtail, Savi's Warbler, Garganey, Marsh Sandpiper and thousands of Geese.

Serious geese numbers

Citrine Wagtail

Savi's Warbler

Marsh Sandpiper

Sadly, despite a massive effort between both here and Matsalu, we couldn't pull out any Lesser White-Fronted Geese. Turns out the majority of them were already well north, up in Oulu Finland, quite early.

Nonetheless, Audru was amazing, with more birds than you could hope to work through.

Here we managed good birds such as multiple Penduline Tit, Red-Throated Pipit, Black-Tailed Godwit, a migrating female Pallid Harrier (was delighted to find that, as it was looking like we might miss them).

A lunch stop in Parnu produced a briefly calling Middle Spotted Woodpecker, but frustratingly, did not show itself.

We moved to Audru village itself, where the park was touted to be excellent for Middle Spotted, but this only produced a frustrating brief glimpse.

We moved back to Audru Polder for remainder of the evening, enjoying many of the same species, but also finding a couple of Caspian Gulls coming in for roost.

We then made our way back to Tallinn the following day, checking various old estates with suitable Middle Spotted Woodpecker habitat on route, but again failing with this species (though we did find a Lesser Spotted).

Paljasaare reserve north of Tallinn produced several booming Bittern, Great Reed Warblers, Little Gulls and Penduline Tits.

Penduline Tit and the reason they are named

Great Reed Warbler - crunch crunch crunch

In Tallinn itself, an impromptu decision to check one of the parks instantly produced Middle Spotted Woodpecker properly, really showing just how far north they have colonized.

Walking into the park, I spotted some quality looking oaks which we made our way up to, among these, one clearly huge, ancient oak looked particularly juicy, and as I took a few steps towards it, a Middle Spotted began calling, before subsequently giving itself up. We watched for about half an hour, absolutely delighted with the views, before heading for the ferry

Middle Spotted Woodpecker - a dream in Black, White and Strawberry

Back in Finland, our target became finding Steller's Eider for Don, as the distant female he had seen on a previous winter visit had been unsatisfying.

We attempted to see 3 birds at Lauttasaari on a couple of occasions but failed, before hearing of a close bird at Porkkala.

We made our way down for this and enjoyed spectacular point blank views, easily the best I have ever had too, so a real treat.