It is still Sunday and fresh from seeing the Ortolan Bunting the rain had become heavy. After seeing Horned Grebes all April on the Detroit River and Belle Isle ponds in various stages of developing their alternate plumage; here, in Finland, a Horned Grebe (Podiceps auritus) is in full breeding plumage. Raining cats and dogs - the rain can be seen on the surface of the water - this little grebe paddled along unperturbed. It's not clear if the bird had reached the end of its migration or if it had a mate on a nest. I recalled that it was in Alaska on a pond such as this where I saw my first full breeding plumaged male Horned Grebe. So I hope it had a mate somewhere. Of note, in the 2009 second edition of the Birds of Europe, this is the Slavonian Grebe with (Horned Grebe) in parenthesis (pages 64-65). If I squint at the photos I can see, sort of, the bird's red eye.
The Horned Grebe was much admired, but this was not a special stop for the grebe. We came here to a Finnature building to pick up rubber boots for everyone so that we could tromp through a boggy forest for our next bird. Remarkably, we were all able to select suitable boots from a metal storage bin on the porch.
Above and below: the habitat - wet and boggy.
Above and two below: (Eurasian) Pygmy Owl (Glaucidium passerinum)
The forest was dark, gloomy and wet. Without the boots this endeavor would not have been possible. I felt like I was on a Lord of the Rings movie set. Of all the walks this trip offered, this was hands down my favorite.
We had another target bird in this forest which gave us a chase. We did finally get very good looks at a perched in the open Grey-headed Woodpecker (Picus canes) (pages 242-243). He didn't stay long.
This trip took us through many different habitats that were not comparable (like apples and oranges) but this forest tromp was my most memorable. When we got our boots removed and ourselves put back together, we drove what I recall to be a short distance to our next owl.
Above and below: Ural Owl (Strix uralensis) on nest. In the photo below, raindrops can be seen in the air in front of the nest box opening. Very clever nest box design. Finnature placed and monitors these nest boxes, so this bird was essentially a drive-up. We saw this view from the road.
The Ural Owl is described in 2nd edition Birds of Europe this way: "Resident of old boreal forests interspersed with bogs, often also open water, clearfellings and small fields. Food voles, frogs and insects (taken after watch from low perch), but it is strongly built and also takes a variety of birds (including other owls!) Nests in tree trunk ("chimney"), nestbox or abandoned raptor's nest. Caution: Very aggressive when young about to leave nest and can attack intruder fiercely; keep your eyes fixed on the parents if you stumble on an inhabited nest, and leave area quickly!" (page 224).
We walked a little way into the woods to get a frontal view of the owl and nest. We were perhaps thirty to forty feet away (I'm a poor judge of distance). She never took her eyes off us. At one point I stepped a foot or two closer to the nest to get out of the way of others. Immediately I was cautioned by Nigel - "come back here." Later, I was speaking with Anttu about this experience and he said to me, "you have to remember that there are always two owls," meaning the mate is also nearby and watching. Anttu knew of several instances of people having lost an eye from a Ural Owl attack. Often the person was unaware of an owl being nearby, but simply got too close. This has also happened to children giving the Ural Owl a bad reputation. That evening during dinner at our second hotel, there was another Finnature birding group also staying at the hotel. Just a week earlier, the leader of that group was attacked by a Ural Owl. Anttu admitted, "He shouldn't have been doing what he was doing, but he was lucky." I snuck a look at the guide's face and the left side did seem slightly swollen.
Back on the road and ready to squeeze into the vans again, a silhouetted (common) Snipe (Gallinago gallinago) flew in for treetop viewing.
Back home now, it's also Sunday when I am writing these posts. My goal is to publish one per day, but today - being Sunday - I published three.
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