Estonia - trip report

I have recently returned from a birding trip to Estonia. At this time of year birds which have bred in the far north of Europe and the Arctic are migrating through this area to more favourable winter quarters further south. These include many thousands of ducks, geese, passerines and the elegant common cranes.

For anyone who is not familiar with Estonia the map below shows the geography and the three locations where our group stayed during the week.

Although there were masses of birds many of them were at distance and could only be viewed through a telescope. I was therefore a bit disappointed that we couldn't get closer so the photos that I did manage to get were at very long range and fairly heavily cropped.

1 Haapsalu area

Dawn view from hotel window.

Mostly Wigeon on lake in front of hotel.

First visit was to a migration watching point on the Puise peninsula. No photos but astonishing number of birds passing through. Main highlight was hundreds of Jays - never seen so many in my life. Also many Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers and masses of finches like Chaffinches, Siskins and a brief view of a White-backed Woodpecker.

The rest of our three days at Haapsalu were spent exploring the various locations around the area. I won't do a detailed itinerary but just show a few pictures of some of the wildlife.

Elk browsing on the vegetation at the edge of a wood. They are normally only seen at dusk so we were quite lucky to see this one in daylight.

At a sea watching place there were Brent Geese both swimming in the water and flying. There were many more species of course like Red-breasted Mergansers.

It was incredibly windy so passing gulls were just hanging in the air right in front of us. This was thought to be a juvenile Baltic Gull which is a sub-species of the Lesser Black-backed Gull although in Estonia they don't treat it separately.

A more familiar Black-headed Gull possibly first winter.

A little group of Sanderling and Dunlin feeding on the foreshore.

This gives you some idea of how many Common Cranes pass through this area on their way to their wintering grounds. There were so many feeding in this field that I couldn't get them all in shot. They are very nervous so it was not possible to get out of the vehicle.

A closer view of a small group.

And a family group – note the juvenile with the brownish head.

Equally large flocks of geese too – in this case Barnacle Geese. There were also flocks of other species of geese flying over including Greylag, Bean and White-fronted (so I was told) but too far away for photographs.

A rather poor photo of a Marsh Harrier.

And now a couple of dragonflies to ID.

I think this is a Southern Hawker but being a novice with these critters perhaps someone could confirm or otherwise.

And this is, I think a Darter, but not certain which one.

2 Kuressaare

This was our next location for a couple of nights. It's located on the island of Saaremaa which we had to get to by ferry.

The main objective of our stay here was to go the peninsula of Sorve which is the most south-westerly point on Estonia. Because of its location it's a hot spot for observing visible migration. Our first visit there was rather disappointing because the rain set in thus suppressing most birds from flying. We did find this very tired Crested Lark trying to recover on the beach.

Our second visit was much more productive. Early morning starts are the norm on these trips so as you can see we were there to see the sunrise on a much better morning.

I've never seen so many small birds passing overhead on my life. There was wave after wave of Chaffinches, Siskins, Goldfinches and other passerines heading south – quite astonishing to see. Apart from a good number of Sparrowhawks which were no doubt preying on the small birds I was a little disappointed that we didn't see any other raptors.

The only photos I got were these of an Eider which was loitering close to shore.

Whilst on the island we went searching for the elusive White-backed Woodpecker but had no luck. There were bears in the woods though. LOL

3 Parnu

Back to the mainland our last two days were based in the town of Parnu.

The highlight here was a visit to a bird ringing station.

They were using a Heligoland trap which is basically a large funnel made of netting. Quite difficult to describe or photograph if you've never seen one before. I hope these photos will give you an idea.

The birds eventually end up in a small cage from which they can be removed by hand for ringing.

By far the greatest number of birds being trapped were Goldcrests. I think they said that they would ring over a thousand birds in the day. As far as the Goldcrests were concerned all they were doing was sexing them, fitting an appropriate ring and releasing them. No attempt was made to take any measurements.

Other more interesting birds were measured.

Nuthatch

Willow Tit

A stroppy Lesser Spotted Woodpecker

And a Crested Tit which one of our group was allowed to hold. It made her day and she said she wasn't going to wash her hand for a week.

They also used mist nets to trap the Goldcrests. I wasn't so keen to see them suspended like this but I suppose that as long as they were not left there too long they would come to no harm.

The sheer number of Goldcrests had a attracted a couple of Hobbies and this one had caught something – clearly a small bird which could have been a Goldcrest

Our final visit was to some coastal marshes. Again, everything was very distant so I struggled to get any decent photos. We'd seen quite a lot of White-tailed Eagles during the week but this one was the only one that was in range and even then very distant.

Summary

This was my first visit to Estonia or to any of the Baltic states which got their freedom after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the nineties. They joined the European Union in 2004 and my impression is that they have made great strides with, of course, the help of EU money.

With a population of only about 1.3 million and about a third of those living in the capital Tallinn the country is one of the least densely populated in Europe. Hotel standards (or at least the ones we stayed in) were good. Roads were excellent and traffic densities low compared to the UK.

Food was good in the hotels too. Usually, on these sort of trips lunches are picnics. However, on this trip for whatever reason we ate at local establishments which often seemed to have been set up in people's homes. This was good because it gave a more authentic insight into to the food that ordinary people ate rather than hotel food. The consequence of three meals a day means that I shall now have to go on a diet to shed a few pounds which I'm sure I must have gained.

I won't say the birding was disappointing because it wasn't but you had to work hard to see some species and then it was often difficult to get close. We made several late evening visits in search of owls and woodpeckers. The only owl we managed to track down was the Pygmy Owl and my photo of it is just a fuzzy blob which I think might be appropriately entered on to the “Bad pics of fab wildlife “ thread. We only managed to track down the Grey-headed Woodpecker on the last evening and by then it was almost too dark to make out it's colours.

I think I shall take two abiding memories from this trip. The visible migration of countless small birds passing though in great numbers and seeing and hearing great skeins of magnificent Common Cranes with their evocative calls.

That's enough waffling from me on behalf of the Estonian tourist board, LOL. Back to some local birding now.