Estonia for Oriole Birding - 3rd October 2025

Another early start but with take-away breakfast saw us making our way to the famous headland of Spithami.  As we approached through the summer cottages it was apparent that Thrushes had arrived with Fieldfare in particularly visible.

With many layers added we set up at the end where a local counter was already in place and spent the next couple of hours logging our sightings as ducks, divers and geese headed south-west through the strait between the promontory and the island of Osmussaar.  Scaup were the commonest duck with shimmering lines containing a few Tufted Duck noted but Scoter were not moving and we only saw a small flock of Commons. All three Geese were seen again with most being Barnacle and it was good to be able to hear the louder, deeper calls of the Tundra Beans over the winking White-fronts as they followed the coast-line.  There were Cormorants on the rocks and in the bays all around us but we also saw hundreds of high flying birds on the same line as the geese while amongst the loafing Herring and Great Black-backed Gulls a smart 1w Caspian and Baltic Gulls were found.

Goldeneye and Scaup

Scaup and Tufted Ducks

Cormorants and a Mute Swan

Barnacle Geese

Tundra Beans and Russian White-fronts

Tundra Beans and Russian White-fronts

Passerines were incoming but were difficult to pick out in the crisp blue sky but we soon got our eye in and located all the same Tit species along with Tree Sparrows, a few Finches and a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker. There was panic from the beach area and every duck, gull, Cormorant and Grey Heron fled out to open water while Wood Pigeons came out of the trees.  A Goshawk was the likely suspect and was quite probably the large raptor skimming through the canopy a short while later.

From here we ventured into the Pines and Rowans behind where more Tits were to be found including ten more Willow Tits in one group, 20 or so Long-tails and 11 Coal Tits. Treecreepers were found actively insect hunting  on Spruce cones and a churring Crested Tit revealed itself and performed for its audience while flocks of Goldcrests entertained in a single Rowan tree.

Goldcrest

Crested Tit

Northern Long-tailed Tit

More finches moved overhead and included our first Crossbill, a Hawfinch and several more tooting Northern Bullfinches and we briefly saw another incoming Lesser Spotted Woodpecker too. Just outside the wood on the common land there were thrushes tumbling out of the sky and the light was magnificent as we watched the Mistle Thrushes jostle the Fieldfares from the highest Spruce tops before everyone piled into a stand of heavily laden Rowen trees.

Mistle Thrush and Fieldfare

Fieldfares and Redwings

Lily of the Valley

Hepatica nobilis

Peltigera sp lichen

Paper Bellflower - Campanula persicifolia

Field Scabious

Tarvo and I retrieved the vans and picked up the crew and we stopped on the way out to watch a flock of 22 Yellowhammers and a Tree Sparrow feeding in one of the gardens while a Great Grey Shrike snuck overhead.

Yellowhammers and a Tree Sparrow

The woods at Roosta were the next stop not too far down the road and we frustratingly heard a Nutcracker but it was too far back but had much better luck with a Pygmy Owl which gave a proper Oscar winning performance in midday sunshine to the delight of everyone.  It was not bothered by us in the slightest and even gave a strange call that is only heard in the autumn.  Silvery Nuthatches, sneezing Marsh Tits and churring Crested Tits kept our eyes and ears active.

Pygmy Owl 

Lunch at Roosta Resta was excellent and then it was back to Altmõisa where rest time was suggested and largely ignored!  

A winter male Common Redstart was parading around the garden and I found a pallid 1w female type as well while a couple of Wrens popped up at last and the nearby copse held a good party of foraging Blue Tits on the Alders with other species in tow including a vocal party of four Treecreepers that made some very strange calls including the Dunnock-like peep of Short-toed TC.

Common Redstart

Treecreeper

Blue Tit

Wren

Great Tits

Sparrowhawks, Buzzards and Barn Doors circled in the blue and I found a few more flowers in bloom and even some leaf mines! Seven Cranes circled off in the distance.

Barn Door

Sparrowhawk

Sericomyia silentis

Devil's Bit Scabious

Altmõisa

Phyllonorycter joannisi on Norway Maple

Stigmella aceris on Norway Maple

Yarrow

Back at the hotel a White-backed Woodpecker was ‘chicking’ and a male Great Spot did likewise but actually showed.  It was frustrating and as soon as Tarvo came back it decided to come out and play(ish) and after several tree trunk views it flew over our heads looking like a Great Spot jammed into a Green Woodpeckers body.

White-backed Woodpecker 

The Redstart reappeared for Tarvo too and there were both Marsh and Willow Tits in the gardens.

A pre-dinner drive was to give us our last chance of Lynx and Ural Owl and we started well with some Roe Deer in a favoured field but the big cat eluded us.  We did find about 200 Golden Plover with Lapwings, Gulls, Starlings, Linnets and Corvids in a big ploughed field.

Roe Deer

Once back on the Haeska tracks we followed each other slowly along in the vans with myself being slightly askew so that we could also see down the track which meant that some of both vans saw the Hazel Hen fly across the track before a Black Woodpecker did likewise for long enough that everyone connected.

Our short stops to try for Ural Owl gave us no owls but a Goshawk was very vocal and Tarvo suddenly called Nutcracker at the same time that I heard one.  He pointed to a dead tree where one was perched and I pointed the other way where another was grating away before flying off in the same direction!  An excellent bird for the whole group to get. Several Elk Keds (flightless Flat Flies) found their way onto us!

Elk Ked

Our efforts to find Ural Owl eventually proved successful and a female responded before sneaking closer and then gliding low over our heads illuminated by the very last glow of the golden hour. 

I do not think anyone lifted their bins (or even needed to) and we all stood and gawped and the silent beauty as she drifted over. She was briefly seen in the tall Polars before moving further in, at which point the male responded some way off in the distance.

A huge moon illuminated the track as the light faded and the drive back gave us eight Woodcock in the afterglow of a glorious and successful day.