Short 'non-birding' trip May 2017
Hopefully of interest to anyone thinking of a short visit to this area, my wife and I recently spent 3 days in Helsinki and two in the historic town of Porvoo, 50kms to the east which lies on a tidal river.
As it was our first visit to anywhere north of Holland in mainland Europe we didn’t know what to expect so hence the brevity of the holiday and our decision to stay in the same small area using only public transport. As it was a bit of a ‘taster’ the break was more about sightseeing than birding, but thanks to some useful tips on buses and correct bus stops from Finnish birder Joni Rasanen we were able to easily access Viikki reserve mentioned up thread.
We arrived in Helsinki on the evening of May 17 and left on 22nd, the landscape around Helsinki Airport still had a winter look about it, trees not yet in leaf, and brown rather than green fields, a bit like our French Alps home surroundings 6 weeks earlier! After a lengthy and copious hotel breakfast we waddled out into the morning city centre drizzle and after asking a bus driver for help found the right stop for the No 24 bus to Seurasaari, a small island reached by crossing a short bridge on foot, on which is found the Open-air Museum, a collection of traditional farm and village buildings dotted around the wooded island. For those of us who know the species as a countryside dweller, to see
Fieldfare everywhere where there was a patch of grass, even in Helsinki city, was a nice surprise, a few
Redwing also at home in the urban setting, the other city centre surprise for us was the presence of
Common Gulls behaving as Black-headed Gulls do in towns in our part of Europe. Easily seen in the water surrounding Seurasaari were
Mute Swan, Canada goose, Barnacle goose, Eider, Goosander, Red-breasted Merganser, Goldeneye, Mallard, Tufted Duck, Great-crested grebe, Common Tern, Black-headed, Herring, Lesser and Greater Black-backed Gull, Oystercatcher and Cormorant. The Great Tit and Blue Tit population on the island are clearly used to being treated, as each time we stopped to look at one of the old buildings we were surrounded by half a dozen of these friendly residents, as an experiment I picked up a few tiny stones and sure enough a bird came straight onto my hand, leaving with a strange call which I took to be a Finnish obscenity! Despite the cool temperatures there were
Swift, Barn Swallow and a single House Martin overhead and passerines noted included
White Wagtail, Blackbird, lots of singing Willow Warbler, Common Redstart , one each of Pied and Spotted Flycatcher, Coal Tit, Hooded Crow, Chaffinch, House and Tree Sparrows. Great spotted Woodpeckers were calling and best bird for me was a
Lesser spotted Woodpecker drumming on the top of the wooden bell tower (I was interested to learn from one of the staff (who are dressed in old traditional garb) why the church bells were in a separate tower, it was a sort of insurance against losing the church and its bells in fires, which were frequent in wooden buildings of course, so if the church burnt down at least the bells were safe and vice-versa!). There’s a quaint old café/restaurant on the island where we discovered salmon soup while watching the antics of the courting Barnacle Geese and the Red Squirrels (also quite tame). The 24 bus passed the Sibelius park with its unusual kinetic sculpture tribute to the composer, we alighted before the city centre to visit the amazing Temppellaukio Church, a modern structure dating from 1969 and hewn into solid rock with its 24m diameter roof made up of 22 kms(!) of copper stripping.
Down at the bustling Kauppatori (fish market) faced by some impressive 19th century buildings that survived the 2nd World War the Common Terns and Common Gulls were, err, common and as the sun was peeking out I sat outside a trendy café with a hot chocolate and cinnamon bun (local speciality) while my wife went window shopping. Despite it being a very busy place, the trees had Spotted Flycatcher and Willow Warblers(well, one of each) and
Greenfinch flew over. For supper we went to Salve, a bar/restaurant with a nautical feel down in the more industrial west harbour, great fried herrings and mash!
Spring had arrived next morning, a pale, presumably “Steppe’
Buzzard went north, as did we, on the tram and bus to Arabia, as we changed from tram to bus on the way up from the city we saw the first of several skeins of Barnacle geese flying high north, definitely not ‘semi-plastic’ ones like the park dwellers in the city!
Along the footpath from the bus stop (Bus No. 68) over the bridge downstream from the waterfall, through firstly parkland, then wooded, swampy habitat, then onto the wooden causeway through reedbeds with occasional bushes and a handful of trees and onto the forested Lamassari Island, Viikii reserve! Some Fieldfare were nest building while others were food carrying,
Chaffinch, Starling, Grey Heron and Magpie also seen, and as soon as we entered the partly flooded woodland we heard
Thrush Nightingale singing and had super close up views of a
Wood Sandpiper almost at our feet, a good start.
Wood warbler and Blackcap were singing away,
Sedge Warbler and Reed Bunting were everywhere in the reeds and from a viewing platform we saw a hunting male
Marsh Harrier. Then somewhere ahead of us I heard a sound I hadn’t heard since my best-ever UK find in Sussex over 20 plus years ago, the far-carrying song of
Common Rosefinch, we approached some low bushes where
Common Whitethroats were chasing each other about and there, at the top of a solitary birch tree, a lovely adult male rosefinch! After admiring it for a minute I whistled back at it and it came down to eyeball us at no more than 2 metres distance! Into the forest on the island proper and up the observation tower to view the sea inlet and grassland next to the extensive reedbed,
Skylark singing and
Goldfinch and Lesser Redpoll over. Around 300 Barnacle Geese grazing, two
Wigeon and a few waders present,
Lapwing (breeding), Common Redshank, Ringed Plover, Common Sandpiper and Dunlin. Walking round from the tower through the forest to the south shore of the island we came face to face with a Thrush Nightingale singing in a sapling right by the path, apparently a short-sighted individual which let us watch it closely before scuttling into cover. It was warming up nicely now and you could almost see the leaves opening on the birch trees. As well as the numerous Willow Warblers we also saw a few
Garden Warblers and a Lesser Whitethroat here. Another Common Rosefinch was singing back at the beginning of the reserve on our return walk.
Back to touristy stuff for the afternoon, visiting the Arabia ceramic factory outlet and museum and nearby design centre, shopping in Helsinki centre and visit to the Kiasma Contemporary art Museum. While Véro went around the exhibits I forced myself to have a beer and Karelia pie, another Finnish speciality (do you see a theme developing here?). It was Friday, 17h, the sun was out and it seemed like everyone in Helsinki wanted to celebrate those two happy events, bar and café terraces heaving with people, no more winter clothes whahay! A Lesser Whitethroat and a phyllosc were sharing a tree outside our hotel in the city centre so it was all kicking off.
We briefly looked round the Uspenski Orthodox cathedral built in 1868 by the Russians (gold, onion shaped domes on the towers, lots of statues and so on inside, you get the picture), then treated ourselves to dinner at Bellevue, a Russian restaurant (well I’d always wanted to try borscht and was tempted by the Armenian Dream on the dessert menu (it was a sort of Irish coffee but you have to try these things don’t you!)).
Saturday was our pelagic boat trip from Helsinki to Porvoo, instead of getting the bus which takes 30 minutes we took a ride on the JL Runeberg, a 100 plus years old boat that takes three and a half hours to do the journey. We saw the Baltic Sea but the route turned and twisted through hundreds of islands closer to the coastline, so no passing Steller’s Eiders or skuas were seen, just a
Honey Buzzard migrating,
Arctic Terns, Shelduck and Coot were added to the Finnish trip list, though we had great views of Eider, even a couple of ducklings.
Porvoo is on a river (still tidal there) and is the second oldest town in Finland with an old town quarter of cobbled streets, I imagine heaving with tourists in summer but once the two coaches of visitors had left each day it was a lovely peaceful place to stay, with cheeky ‘Nordic’
Jackdaws attending the café tables for scraps. An interesting boggy area, pond(looked perfect for Citrine Wagtail!) and pine/birch mixed forest lay just upstream,
Goldcrest, Jay, lots of singing Pied Flycatchers, more Thrush Nightingales, Redstarts, Lesser Whitethroats, Sedge and Willow Warblers etc and
Hobby and
Sparrowhawk seen both days. We joined in the Sunday Finnish service in the Lutheran cathedral (they do a Swedish language on too as Porvoo has a significant Swedish speaking population) had a long walk, more sightseeing, nice lunch (outside!) so all this activity (and perhaps the strong lunchtime Finnish artisan/craft beer
) had taken its toll on Véro so she chose the siesta option on this,our last afternoon, therefore I had two hours to try and get to the reedbeds that Joni had told me about downstream from Porvoo town. It was a long hot walk but I eventually reached the area which holds Finland’s only Bearded Reedlings I believe, I thought I heard one ‘ping’ as I walked along the road but the wind was blowing hard so not sure about that one. I did however have
Reed and Great Reed Warblers. What looked like an oversized Willow Warbler in a treetop canopy had me puzzled (I still can’t think what it could have been). After an hour’s walk the road entered a forested area and there was a sign indicating different birds and animals opposite a track so I walked into the woods,
Siskin over and a calling
Black Woodpecker. I knew I had a long walk back so turned around to go back along the road. Only as I headed back along it did I see that there was an observation tower on the edge of the forest, presumably where the track would have taken me! Joni had sent me a map too but I’d left it in the hotel. I was thinking, oh never mind, but my mood changed when I heard the unmistakeable call of
Common Crane coming from that direction!
The long walk back was brightened by another Common Rosefinch, and some Pied Flycatchers were visiting nestboxes (if we understood the programme we saw on the TV correctly that afternoon, there was a ‘Make a million nestboxes’ campaign this spring in Finland, the target was achieved, and some, so the Pied Flys and Redstarts are getting some good help from the friendly Finns).
We had a tip from the hotel receptionist on our arrival that cheap bus tickets could be bought on line, so for the princely sum of 3 euros each we caught the double-decker Onnibus back to Helsinki on Monday morning and train to the airport. We had bought Helsinki Card transport cards in advance on line which we had picked up on our arrival, these gave us transport on the whole Helsinki transport system, plus free entry to various museums we visited.
So, considering I had done no research and the trip was based in mostly urban settings, a good selection of species was seen, kiitos Finland, we will be back!
