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This organised trip, arranged by Ibis Excursions, was undertaken with Bill Pegram.
The trip started on the afternoon of the 4th and finished on the afternoon of the 7th. The three days were very intensive and involved a total
of 48 hours in the field.
The tour leader was Marco Darhl who was provided by Finnature. He proved competent but did tend to follow his own agenda (concentrating on
'padders' and species totals when there were still new birds to be seen); however, all target species (and more) were seen so the results must
surely count for themselves!
All accommodation and food was taken care of by the organisers, as was the itinerary. The exact location of some of the sites was not revealed
by the guides for obvious reasons. Transport around Finland was via minibus.
Weather
Very wet! Almost continuous rain (although mostly light). However, there were breaks in the rain and there was little wind so it was not necessarily
bad for birding. The last afternoon was actually quite sunny.
Kuusamo, in the east, was rather cold (less than 10°C) and there was thick fog at the rubbish dump there which made gull watching impractical.
Places Visited
Oulu
Most of our time was spent here. The habitat consisted of a mixture of forest (Scots Pine, Sitka Spruce and Silver Birch), open farmland, small
towns and villages and costal lagoons and wetland.
Kajaani
One stop was made at woodland near to here specifcally to see Hawk Owl.
Kuusamo
Near to the Russian border, true Taiga forest was encountered as well as numerous large and small inland lakes.
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