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Birding Finland on the Fly

10,000 Birds

Here’s his third stop: In June of 2013, we arrived in Helsinki, the capital and largest city in Finland, and our third destination on our European getaway. The spectacle, hosted by The Association of Samba Schools in Finland, includes over 1,000 dancers and musicians and draws a crowd of 20-30,000 with the goal of promoting Samba in Finland.

Finland 189
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Celebrating a Waxwing Winter

10,000 Birds

Secondly, much of the appeal is that this is a bird we don’t see in the UK very often, for Waxwings are an irruptive species, and in most years only a few ever reach our shores from their breeding grounds in the boreal forests of Scandinavia. I’ve managed to see them, too, on their breeding grounds in Finland in summer.

Finland 242
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Short

10,000 Birds

This Autumn/Winter has brought excellent numbers of another owl from its breeding grounds in Scandinavia and one that is a damn sight easier to see as it is partly diurnal or active during the day. Short-eared Owls do breed in Britain but every few years an ‘irruption’ of the like we are seeing occurs.

Barn Owls 203
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How to find the Ural Owl in Serbia

10,000 Birds

The Ural Owl inhabits old and undisturbed boreal forests, in an unbroken belt from Sweden and Finland across Russia to Japan, and is rarely seen to the south, only here and there, in the Carpathians (Slovakia/Ukraine/Romania/eastern Serbia) and Dinaric Alps (Croatia/Bosnia/western Serbia). Two years ago I screamed “UralOwlUralOwlUralOwl!!!”

Serbia 246
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Douze points

10,000 Birds

You may recall that the hosts Sweden had some pedigree in this competition when Abba won with “Waterloo”, but their Scandinavian neighbours have been guilty of some dreadful entries including , the shame of Finland, Lordi and “Hard Rock Hallelujah”. Without the estimated 125 million viewers, he will sing through the night.

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The European Christmas Bird Count

10,000 Birds

These globally threatened raptors breed from Ukraine eastward through Siberia and only a few come to overwinter here. One odd flock of Feral Pigeons above an arable field under deep snow – nothing for them to eat there, but I didn’t give them the attention they deserve and only a few hours later realised that they actually were Stock Doves.

Geese 174
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What the rings reveal

10,000 Birds

Black-tailed godwits winter in large numbers on the estuaries of both Norfolk and Suffolk, and we know that nearly all these birds breed in Iceland. In breeding plumage islandica godwits develop a deeper red plumage than their limosa cousins. They are of the race islandica , a sub species of the nominate race, limosa.

Lithuania 130