After horrible Sunday, the Monday was more than good. Called Aki in the afternoon, and we decided to take a short trip for old time's sake. It was a good idea.
At the Pornaistenniemi-Lammassaari duckboards we first heard and saw one male Citrine Wagtail (Motacilla citreola), "sittis", that was suddenly replaced by another one. Nice!
Back in the day - in early 2000s - the age identification of Citrines was relatively straightforward: if the male had greyish colouration on the top of the head, it was 2cy. +2cy birds were and are supposed to have completely lemon-yellow top of the head. However, the "bush wisdom" right now is that said cue is perhaps not good enough. From what I saw I can certainly say that both males had a greyish wing, with no old remiges.
Citrine Wagtail was a rarity back in late 1990s, but numbers have skyrocketed since then. Tarsiger.com doesn't even bother to calculate the numbers, and neither can I; the pretty Siberian wagtail is now a yearly visitor and regular breeder in Southern Finland. Seeing one at Viikki is even less surprising. Me and Aki calculcated that the sum of Citrines in Viikki that day was at least 5 individuals.
In Lammassaari we twitched 2/2 Garganeys (Anas querquedula), a couple of Sand Martins (Riparia riparia) and most importantly, a Marsh Sandpiper (Tringa stagnatilis), a relatively uncommon, but almost yearly visitor to Finland.
On our trip back the two males Citrines were accompanied by a female, which is at a high probability the same female Jarkko photographed two days later (Tarsiger.com). We also calculated about 140 Wood Sandpipers (Tringa glareola) going north.
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