Dear friends,
As promised, I'm posting the last part of the Finland story. This one is about the other bird species. At the lekking sites of the black grouses, several other species were present. The cranes had just returned from their wintering grounds. They stayed far away from our hides, but their territorial calls added a special accent during the early morning hours. At one occasion a couple of whooper swans came flying over our hides with loud calls. Luck was on our side as they decided to land just about 50 meters in front of our hides. After some grooming they flew away and I managed to get sharp pictures of their take off.
After the black grouse sessions, we spend the rest of the day to search for other bird species. You can imagine that we also needed some rest in the afternoon after getting up at 2.30. Our Finnature guide Ari Latja drove us along the hotspots in the Oulu region. We observed groups of cranes and whooper swans on the fields, capercaillie and crossbills in the forest, as well as a group of three moose. Finland is well-known for its owls and woodpeckers. A resident black woodpecker gave a nice show and we were lucky that Ari found the largest and the smallest member of the Finnish owl family, the magnificant great grey owl as well as the pygmy owl. Both gave us unforgetable moments.
Thanks for visiting this site. Hope to see you back!
Dirk-Jan
