Estonian Nature Tours: Estonia in spring, May 9-16, 2015

Looking out of my Promenade hotel room window at 5:30 AM Sunday morning I noticed that the rising sun behind the Tagalaht Bay had „ears” – here known as a sure sign of bad weather coming. Luckily everything was going right and summing up the final score of the bird checklist together with Marietta, SNP Natuurreizen tourleader, on our way back to Tallinn the result was 127 species.

It wasn't that bad at all, we had to admit, considering several species hadn't arrived yet or were just not singing due to cold weather. Sad to say, but we had no sign whatsoever of icterine warbler, wood lark, greenish warbler, shrikes, scoters, spotted crakes or corncrakes.

Lapwings in flight. Photo: P. Vissak

Instead we had beautiful spottings of kingfisher, waxwing, hoopoe, horned grebe, avocet, curlew, white-tailed eagle, hobby, 3 species of harrier, barnacle geese, cranes, hawfinch, rosefinch, willow tit, crested tit and loudly performing thrush nightingale everywhere. Two far black grouse and one mysterious hazel grouse. Nutcracker and black woodpecker remained as distant calls, grey-headed woodpecker came upon, but most of us didn't spot it though. Elk and beaver were expected and nicely delivered. One wet and fat speciman did not care about us at all, while tucking into fresh plants just by the boat.

Beaver. Photo: P. Vissak

Escalating conflict between cranes and curlews.
Photo: P. Vissak

Horned grebe. Photo: P. Vissak

White-tailed eagle in the reedbeds. Photo: P. Vissak

This tour was much about birds, as most of the plants were still sleeping or yet in buds. Yes, we saw lots of yellow flowers – yellow anemones, multiflowered buttercup, lesser celandine and cowslips, cowslips, cowslips. In the other hand - Osmussaar island surprised us with early spring remnants - a big clump of liverleaf in full blossom. Amazing how a small country may be so large in its seasons.

Osmussaar island, liverleaf still in blossom. Photo: P. Vissak

SNP tour leader Marietta taking pictures of liverleaf

There isn't much more to speak about botanical survey. Some species of flowering sedges and cottongrass in moist meadows, danish scurvygrass on the ultimate edge of the limestone cliff of Osmussaar island, flowers opened on top of almost negligible stems, bittie leaves of round-leaved sundew in raised bogs and ghostly white romantic flowers of wood sorrel.

Danish scurvygrass (rare in Estonia) in Osmussaar island.
Photo: P. Vissak

Danish scurvygrass. Photo: P. Vissak

Wood sorrel. Photo: P. Vissak

Then of course there were the eery „fingers of the dead” - or toothwort, a plant, who is living the life of an earthworm, crawling most of the year under the ground and having scales instead of leaves. Only once a year for a very short time it shows up with its fleshy pink flowers.

Toothwort. Photo: P. Vissak

This time the plants were following us in our footsteps. Hardly gone from West Estonia, I was called by a keen orchid photographer, announcing that military orchid and early purple orchid will be out within 1-2 days. We hurry, nature doesn't.

Hereby some more quickly developed tour pictures (by Peeter Vissak), some of them shot merely through bus window :)