Over the weekend of 28th-29th May 2011 I took my wife Kay to Northern Finland, primarily for her to see her much wanted Great Grey Owl. As I had visited here previously, 6 years ago, when I saw all the specialty owl species of the region, it was a return trip for me, but of interest never-the-less. We were in the company of our son, Chris, and flew out on the Friday with Finnair from London Heathrow to Helsinki, where we changed planes for the short 55 minute onward leg to Oulu at the northern end of the Gulf of Bothnia.
Our accommodation and bird-guiding was arranged with Finnature. We stayed at the Liminganlahti Visitors Centre at Virkkula on the southern end of Liminganlahti – a wide shallow bay in the Gulf of Bothnia about 20km south of Oulu. The Visitor Centre has 8 or so bedrooms that sleep up to 6 people – each with en-suite – and a restaurant offering a good cooked breakfast and snacks etc. It also has a really good hide and an observation tower that overlooks the bay.
For our Saturday evening meal we ate at the nearby 24-hour ABC motorway services at Tupos. A rental car (expensive – as is everything in Finland) was a necessity and cost £170 for 2-days, but we needed it to reach the early Saturday morning 3.00am pick-up point where we joined the Finnature owl-birding group and also for visiting various bird-watching observation towers positioned around the bay.
Unfortunately, due to a lighting-strike by ground staff at Helsinki Airport on our outward flight, our luggage never reached us at Oulu Airport until we arrived there for our return flight on the Sunday late-afternoon. Luckily, we had all our optics and our waterproof cagoules in our hand luggage, but everything else, including tripods, was in our delayed luggage, and I had to make do with an improvised monopod fashioned out of a fallen tree branch for photography.
Because of the strike induced 3-hour delay at Helsinki, we didn’t arrive until late on Friday evening, so no chance of any birding this day. Jari, our friendly host at the Visitors Centre kindly provided us with a new toothbrush each, plus a new tube of toothpaste, and Finnature loaned us rubber-boots (it was wet underfoot in the forest) and also gloves and hats.
At 3:00am on the Saturday we met our Finnature guide at the ABC Tupos Services and after she had purchased snacks and hot drinks for the morning we set off in an 8-seater minibus full of expectation as we had paid 200 Euros (£180) each for the next 8 hours of guided birding. Imagine how crestfallen we were when not only the first nest-hole, but the following two (three-in-a-row) failed to produce any birds during the next 3.5 hours, and when asked if we would have any further chance to see them our guide replied with a fairly curt “No”. So that was Pygmy Owl, Tengmalm’s Owl and Three-toed Woodpecker that our party never saw! You can imagine how we felt when the next afternoon at Oulu Airport we discovered that another tour party had been shown Pygmy and Tengmalm’s Owls on the Sunday morning at other nest sites!
We did have better luck after this (we needed it), when we had great views of a perched female Hawk Owl near to her nest-hole – an old Black Woodpeckers nest – and then later a female Great Grey Owl and a female Ural Owl both sitting on their respective old Goshawk nests. We also saw a pair of Great Grey Shrikes, 3 perched Black Grouse, a flyover Black Woodpecker; 2 fly-over Common Cranes, 2 Pied and single Spotted Flycatchers, 6 fly-over Common Crossbills and 3 Yellowhammers.
Our guide returned us to the pick-up point at around 11:30am and we drove back to the Visitors Centre for a short rest before setting out to do some of our own birding, when Kay found an occupied roadside Black Woodpeckers nest-hole and we spent some time watching the adults coming-and-going as they fed two almost full-grown young, eagerly poking their heads out to be fed. Apart from a small group of 6 Goldeneye on a small, fast flowing river, we found very little until returning to the Visitors Centre where we saw a singing sub-adult male Common Rosefinch and a few common species such as breeding Fieldfares and Redwings by the end of our day.
Next morning (Sunday), after a good cooked breakfast, we spent a couple of hours birding from the shore hide, where among other interesting birds we saw several male Ruff in full breeding plumage displaying to females (reeves). We then drove to two of the other four observation towers around Liminganlahti bay where we saw a variety of birds. Our list of the more interesting birds, until we had to leave for the airport, was: 100+ flock of Whooper Swans, 4 Garganey, 5 White-tailed Eagles (4-ads & an imm.), at least 8 Marsh Harriers, an Osprey, 100+ flock of Common Cranes, 10+ Ruff, 6 Black-tailed Godwits (in breeding plumage), 6 Greenshank, 4 Little Gulls, 2 Little Terns, 15+ Common Terns, a Cuckoo, several White Wagtails, 3 Whinchats, 3 Pied Flycatchers, many ‘Nordic race’ Jackdaws, and 3 male Common Rosefinches.
The weather throughout was a mixture of sunshine and showers. Mostly we avoided the heavier rainfall when either birding from our rental car or from the shore-hide at the Visitors Centre. Would I recommend this Finnature owl-trip? As my first trip with Finnature, six years ago, was a complete success, and although this one left much to be desired, I would have to say yes, but with strong reservations. Six years ago, our guide collected us from a nearby airport hotel and by 20:00 we were watching our first owl, a Hawk Owl, followed by great views of Great Grey Owls at two different nest sites. Later, at around 23:00 we saw Tengmalm’s Owl and then Pygmy Owl at 01:15 – both very well during the peak feeding activity time for these small owls (ref. Owls of Europe by Heimo Mikkola). On this trip, our arrival at the Pygmy Owl nest box at 04:30 and then the Tengmalm’s at 06:00 seemed to be well outside their peak feeding activity time, judging by Mikkola’s book.
Great Crested Grebe, Grey Heron, Whooper Swan, Greylag Goose, Gadwall, Teal, Mallard, Pintail, Garganey, Shoveler, Pochard, Tufted Duck, Goldeneye, Red-breasted Merganser, White-tailed Eagle, Marsh Harrier, Sparrowhawk, Osprey, Peregrine Falcon, Black Grouse, Moorhen, Coot, Common Crane, Lapwing, Dunlin, Ruff, Common Snipe, Woodcock, Black-tailed Godwit, Curlew, Greenshank, Little Gull, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Common Tern, Little Tern, Wood Pigeon, Collard Dove, Cuckoo, Hawk Owl, Short-eared Owl, Ural Owl, Great Grey Owl, Swift, Skylark, Sand martin, Swallow, House Martin, White Wagtail, Whinchat, Blackbird, Fieldfare, Redwing, Sedge Warbler, Reed Warbler, Whitethroat, Blackcap, Garden Warbler, Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler, Spotted Flycatcher, Pied Flycatcher, Coal Tit, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Jackdaw (Nordic race), Hooded Crow, Chaffinch, Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Linnet, Common Crossbill, Common Rosefinch, Bullfinch, Yellowhammer, Reed Bunting.