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From: s30986u@kaira.hut.fi (Martin Helin)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Rarities in Europe - anyone interested
Summary: Cream-coloured Courser in Finland Sept. 1989
Message-ID: <25572@santra.UUCP>
Date: 28 Sep 89 12:21:35 GMT
Sender: news@santra.UUCP
Reply-To: s30986u@kaira.hut.fi (Martin Helin)
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
Lines: 38
References:

HI ALL BIRD WATCHERS IN THE NETLAND !

For a long time I've been aware of the existence of this group but
it wasn't until this month we began receiving it at my site. Thus
I'm not fully aware of what kind of readers follow this group.

Anyway, I would be very pleased to here that some of you (especially
in Europe) were interested in rarities in Europe (including vagrants
from North America and elsewhere, of course).

Please, let us all know what goes on in your country (Western Palearctic
only please unless you people out there in the U.S. want to have a
conversation of your own). Probably the best thing to do is to include
words 'Europe only' in the subject line unless you can avoid distribution
across the Atlantic in some other way. I'll try to distribute this only
to Europe but I don't know whether it is going to work (*.rec groups
are automatically distributed all over the net ?!).

For a start I can tell you that the most rare bird observed in Finland
this autumn is, by far, a Cream-coloured Courser (Cursorius cursor) -
I hope I got the name right - a couple of days ago in the Western part
of Finland. A schoolboy found the bird on his way to school and thought
after succesfully identifying the species (sic !) that nobody's going
to believe him unless somebody else sees the bird.
     That's how the twitchers got the word and the rumour says that
some 30 bird-watchers managed to see this 'cosmic mind-fucker' before
it was killed by a Hen Harrier (Circus cyaneus) in front of the eyes
of the horrified (or malicious, perhaps !) group of successful bird-
watchers.
	It was the second observation in Finland of this African
species (some 4000 kilometers away from it's homegrounds) the first
being shot in the year 1893 - almost exactly 100 years ago. The first
observation was also made in th autumn, namely in October.

           Martin Helin
Martin Helin	Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
Internet : 	mhe@otax.hut.fi		UUCP : mhe@otax.UUCP
		s30986u@kaira.hut.fi	       s30986u@kaira.UUCP