Goodbye Norway, hello Finland again Day 14 (1 June): We drove back to Ivalo, having another good look at the snowy mountains before heading for the Tana River and crossing the border back into Finland. There, of course, we made the obligatory stop at the Grosbeak cafe. After dinner, we had a last walk to the viewing platform from where we watched a couple of moose in the distance. Day 15 (2 June): I had a last walk around the…
We had been told that there may be some Doterel up the mountain just past Utsjoki so we decided to go and see before crossing the border into Norway. We were lucky and saw four of them in a little group. Lunch was at a big supermarket and I tried some liquorice ice cream. It’s surprisingly nice. It was time to cross the border: for me, home at last. We stopped at Varangerfjorden near Nessby and had a walk before…
Day 7 (25 May): We drove on to Ivalo where we were to stay at the next hotel, birding as we went. We crossed the Arctic Circle at Tonkopuro and, a while later, we stopped for a walk up to a mountain plateau near Saariselkä. Day 8 (26 May): We spent the day exploring the area. Before lunch, we stopped off at some Reindeer pens and then drove up a mountain. Lunch was taken at what we nick-named the Grosbeak…
Day 4 (22 May): We drove on to Kuusamo and had great views of another Hawk Owl. Hawk Owls pretty much ignore people and this pair had set up home on the edge of a farm house garden and right next to a country road. We made a stop at a nature reserve at Liminka on the Baltic Coast and we sat and enjoyed our coffee while watching a Black Woodpecker that was nesting in a big tree on a…
Day 3 (21 May): We drove on to Oulu, stopping at a roadside café decorated with a large number of bells and doing some birding on the way. After dinner, we set off for an evening with owls. A local expert took us to the nest of a Great Grey Owl that he was monitoring while the female bird stared at us with her yellow eyes from a nearby birch tree. Our ringer friend was ringing a brood of Tengmalm’s…