Autumn is in the air

Despite of the occasional rainfall and short thunder in the morning, me and Mati had busy morning. It has been the best migration day of the autumn season so far, with 15 000 passing birds. The majority of migrants has been finches again - Chaffinches/ metsvint Fringilla coelebs 10 390m and Siskin/ siisike Carduelis spinus 3 153m. Also ongoing main migration of Barn Swallows/ suitsupääsuke Hirundo rustica - 490m (the second biggest daily sum of the autumn season). Today also 4 House Martins/ räästapääsuke Delichon urbicum and 1 Sand Martin/ kaldapääsuke Riparia riparia has been picked up from the flocks of Swallows. And today again 2 Red-throated Pipits/ tundrakiur Anthus cervinus passing our field station.

Beside passerines - migration flock of 62 Bean Geese/ rabahani Anser fabalis flew over the island - clear sign that autumn is in the air. It has been a bit rainy day for the raptors but today Lesser Spotted Eagle/ väike-konnakotkas Aquila pomarina showed up again. This time I got better look of the bird and it turned to be 1cy individual. Also the pale morph of the juvenile Honey Buzzard/ herilaseviu Pernis apivorus has been circuling around again while two darker companions tried to cross the sea today. Other migrating raptors today - Merlin/ väikepistrik Falco columbarius 1m and Hobby/ lõopistrik Falco subbuteo 1m.

/T.V./

Flock of Chaffinches climbing up to to join with a other flocks and head to the sea

Hooded Crow is not happy on the passing juvenile Honey Buzzard (dark morph)

The chase continues 

Our favored bird - quite rare pale morph of the Honey Buzzard

The Kihnu  meteorological station was visited by the new head of the national weather service mr. Jalmar Mandel (right) and technical staff in order to get overview on the station and to maintain the weather measuring equipment (the calibration of the automatic rain gauge in the picture)

The head of the national weather service Jalmar Mandel (center left) and director of the University of Tartu Estonian Marine Institute, Toomas Saat (right in the center) discuss with their colleagues the future collaboration.