I’ve spent Easter mostly writing my study assignments for university. Getting some fresh air and relaxing my eyes in the beautiful nature has really been needed in between the essays and reports etc. Today I went again to Suomenoja, this time equipped with camera and zoom lens. I wanted to share with you some photos of the water birds that I saw today.

This guy with the handsome mullet is male tufted duck (‘tukkasotka’). It dives to find food in the water. It’s rare and protected, rare in terms of 40-60 thousand couples nesting in Finland.

This is a Northern shoveler couple (‘lapasorsa’), it is also protected. Male has its mating “suit” on, later in the summer it changes its feathers to look more like the female. Somehow these ducks always remind me of Disney cartoon figures..

This fellow who looks as if it has perhaps had too many drinks last night (based on the color of its eyes), is Black necked grebe (‘mustakurkku-uikku’). It’s extremely rare, and approximately 48% of all the birds in EU area nest in Finland, this means 6-11 thousand couples. Obviously protected too.

This bird is Gadwal (‘harmaasorsa’). It looks quite modest but if you look at its feathers closer, it has very beautiful pattern. This bird is also protected in Finland. There are approximately 500-1000 couples nesting mainly in the Southern part of Finland.

These ones are Goldeneyes (‘telkkä’). Male goldeneye has very theatrical look with the white spot on the cheek.

Mute swans (‘kyhmyjoutsen’) are always beautiful and majestic to look at. Did you know that whooper swan is actually Finland’s national bird? I hope I spot one of them this year.

Eurasian coot (‘nokikana’) is also a rare bird. It likes to make its nest in the middle of cattails or even on top of muskrats nest. I wonder what the muskrats think of this neighbor on top of their home.. I hope I will soon see the muskrats too, so far I have not seen any of them but I believe I will see many when it gets warmer.

And of course last but not least Mallard (‘sinisorsa’), probably the most common duck bird all over Finland.

So as you can see, there are plenty of different birds to see, I only captured some of them to the pictures. So grab your binoculars and take a stroll around the seashore, see if you can spot all these birds! If you want to learn to recognize the birds also by the sounds they make, these Luontoportti pages are good for that purpose.