In August Catherine’s son made her a grandmother, so it was off to New Jersey to see the new addition to the family. While we were there we also did some photography, capturing some peregrine falcons and skimmers (the New York metro area actually has a number of good birding spots).
Being on the other coast put us halfway to Europe, so we decided to use it as jumping off place for Europe, more specifically Finland where we joined a weeklong tour of wildlife hides in the central part of the country. We started in the West and went east until we ran into Finland’s Border Zone, and realized we were nearing the Russian border.
The Finland Border Guard says about its Border Zone.
There is a border zone at the border between Finland and Russia. The border zone facilitates border control and helps to maintain border security. The border zone extends to a maximum of three kilometres on land and a maximum of four kilometres at sea.
You need a permit to enter the border zone. You can be punished for entering the border zone without a permit.
At our closest we were less than 1,000 yards from the Russian border. Normally that would not be an issue. But since Russia invaded Ukraine, Finland decided wanted to join NATO, and Russians began fleeing the country to avoid the draft, we certainly paid close attention to where we went.
It was fall already in Finland. The good news was that colors were out in force. The bad news was it was overcast with sporadic rain and only a few hours of sun the whole time we were there. The meant a lot of low light photography, which was made much easier by the great low light capability of our mirrorless cameras.
Our first stop was a hide where the Black Grouse gather, called a lek. Black grouse are large chicken sized birds in the grouse family.
The males form a communal lek to protect their territories and show off for the females, showing off their vitality by displaying against each other. Since it was fall and breeding season was months away, they were mostly demonstrating to other males who was in best positioned when the real time came, so it was somewhat subdued. But not so subdued we didn’t see some good displays and interaction, and definitely worth the 4:30AM pickup.
Our guide put the session as a 7 out of 10 (0 = total bust, 10 = most awesome).
Our luck continued later that day as we went to the eagle owl hide for the night. The first owl showed up at 8:20PM and stayed the night, a highly unusual occurrence. It was a juvenile and it was visited by an adult several times during the night.
It left around 6AM the next morning but an adult returned at 9AM for another meal. It then left 5 minutes before our 10AM pickup. The bird had great timing and the session was a 9 out of 10.
However what nature gives it also takes away and our luck followed the rule and went from great to bad. Our next stop was a blind to see the Golden Eagle. We had allocated two long days to the endeavor, being picked up at 4:30AM and not returning until to our lodge after dark. But this was not enough time or luck. No eagles showed up, and while we did get a few jays, other songbirds and squirrels, the main attraction was conspicuous by its absence. A real bust.
Of course, in nature things generally regress to the mean and at our next stop it happened. This time we were looking for browns bears and were not disappointed. They were fattening up for the long winter hibernation (it was the second half of September) and were looking for food wherever they could find it (1st session 6 out of 10, second session 4 out of 10).
The bears got to within 10 feet of our hide, which was quite comfortable (and bear proof).
Our last stop was the wolverine hides. The wolverine is the size of the a medium sized dog (35 pounds) and is related not to wolves but to weasels. However, like wolves, wolverines are very ferocious, shy and not often seen, much less photographed. But we had two days to try to capture one in our cameras. The first day was basically a bust, as the only one we saw was a ‘drive by’, which in our grab shot you can sort of make out that it was a wolverine, which prevented it from being a total bust (It was a 1 out of 10).
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That, and the vagaries of our location on the left side of hides. As luck would have it, those on the other end of the line of hides did OK as the wolverine spent a fair amount of time there. We were at the wrong place at the right time.
The next day we decided to start earlier and were in our hide at 10:45AM. We waited and waited, and as usual nature was in control, with nothing for 4 long hours. Finally, one appeared, demonstrating his climbing skills as he went after the food put out for him.
It wandered around in front of us for a half hour, even getting to within 30 feet of us. That was nice because Jon’s telephoto died on him, and he was forced to use his wide-angle. (8 out of 10).
For our next adventure we will be moving from the high latitudes of Finland (65 degrees North) to equatorial Ecuador (on the equator). However the temperature will not be changing much as we are also moving from Finland’s sea level (Finland) to over a mile high in Ecuador (4,000-10,000 feet).
Until next time.