Lions, Tigers, BEARS!! OH MY!



I've long wanted to see bears. 

They are few and far between in southern Finland (though they do crop up from time to time) and they unfortunately have a tendency to get shot when they appear. 

Wolves are a little more frequent, but difficult to see. There's been one lone individual in the Kirkkonummi/Siuntio area for years now. I came across it once whilst walking at Ämmäsuö, but it was a brief encounter and views were hardly spectacular.

I had long wanted to go on a bear watching trip to one of the hide companies in eastern Finland, but finding the time is always an issue, and usually this requires booking well in advance.

However, due to Corona virus, international tourism is obviously down and slots are easily available.
And so we booked for a night in early July and off we went. 

We started out with a few days in the Tohmajärvi area. Nothing special, just chilling out with a little bit of birding. 

A few brief trips out in the area produced breeding waders such as Whimbrel and Golden Plover on eastern mires, which was a great experience, and plenty of Nightsingers in the Tohmajärvi area, including an impressive ~30 Corncrake in a relatively small area, and a singing Grasshopper warbler (always scarce).



Whimbrel


Amazing to see and hear so many Corncrake scrapping in the wee hours.



Corncrake

The forests in the area were also good for Parrot Crossbills.

But then it was on to the main event.

We travelled up to Kuhmo to lodge into a hide for the night with Wildlife Finland, from 6 p.m to 8 a.m.

Within minutes a Black Kite appeared, snatching a big mouthful of the dead pig bait before making it's way off to roost for the night.



Black Kite

Barely half an hour into the stake out and the first Bear made an appearance. Absolutely incredible.















Eurasian Brown Bear - a dream fulfilled. What an amazing beast. The sound of bones crunching was simultaneously morbid and incredible.

Not long after this Bear, the first Wolf appeared.





Wolf - a young animal, brave and inquisitive, with neat fur. We nicknamed this one "Dingo" because of its orange colouration.

When I say brave....



I mean brave.

















"Dingo" - 4K video

This adult White-Tailed Eagle then droped in to steal some bait, making off with a fish to the middle of the mire.



Thief.



Shortly after this, two other wolves appeared. These were the Alphas, the male and female of the pack.









"Alpha" - the male. A warrior, proudly displaying scars from past conflicts. Pale and beautiful, with a trace of a mane. He had no problem bravely walking right up to bears and asking for scraps.




Alpha - 4K Video


Proud dad. When Alpha appeared, dingo instantly ran up to him and affectionately nuzzled into him, with he returning affection in kind. Whilst I never held such misconceptions, the mere thought that Wolves are vicious, aggressive creatures could never be maintained.



The female, which we called "The Grey" soon won my heart as the most beautiful, "Classic" Wolf of the group. 


"The Grey" - the Alpha female. With prominent nipples, she was most likely suckling pups nearby. Shier of the hides than the other two Wolves, she preferred to wander the mire, seemingly eating fresh cloudberries I think. She would disappear for long periods, presumably checking in on the den, before again appearing on the mire and occasionally initiating a bout of howling in the pack.


"The Grey" - 4K video


My lady.











Seeing this beautiful lady howling, in such a spectacular fashion and setting will be a lasting memory. 

I unfortunately didn't manage to get her on video during howling (difficult to rearrange the scope to the necessary angle) but other watchers managed some incredible footage. 

I do not believe I will ever shake the sight and sound of this beautiful lady Wolf, singing in the misty twilight. Her breath signing into the night sky. I've never seen anything so incredible.

Other Bears made appearances over the course of the night, with what we think to be 6-7 individuals.






Smiley



Eurasian Bears - 4K video


The immensity of these animals against the landscape. Somehow, simultaneously, standing out apart from it..and yet a perfect fit.




Multi-Bear action


Stand off




Those eyes.





"Ah tis yourself."





"He's behind you!"







Bears in the mist.

A fantastic experience I cannot recommend enough. We also encountered the Forrest sub-species of Reindeer in this area, which was also a lifer. Beautiful animals in a beautiful place.

Comments

  1. Sadini UpekaJuly 15, 2020 at 5:17 PM

    Wow! Amazing encounters - two great species of the wilderness right in front of you - more if you count the White-tailed Eagle. The slight mist and the field of white flowers only make it more enchanting.
    Greetings from Sri Lanka!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Finnish Focus On...Taiga And Tundra Bean Geese

Image
Have been meaning to write a post on Tundra and Taiga Bean Goose identification for a while now. Wildfowl are my guilty pleasure. I've always enjoyed looking for them. The escape issue turns a lot of people off them. Grey geese can turn people off further still. Since moving to Finland, being able to spend long hours in the field watching both types of Bean Goose has been a joy, especially considering how rare they are in Ireland.  Tundra Bean Geese are the far commoner species to occur here, making them the easier to photograph and so a good place to start. Tundra Bean Goose Tundra Bean Goose - careful assessment of structure is most important when identifying bean geese. Whilst there are size differences between the smaller Tundra and larger Taiga, this plays out most obviously in their structure and shape. Both species, rear on, can be extremely difficult to pick apart without the structural clues visible. The head and bill structure are crucial in Bean Goose identification. Thi...
Read more

The IRBC - Spooftocracy

Image
Decided to start a fresh tracking of the IRBC faileptitude as the previous post was now enormous. Like those who tracked Trump's golfing or Musk's private jet use...transparency, fact and truth matter.  And the only place you are going to find it in regards to Europe's most ridiculous excuse for a rarity committee is right here. (Well...apart from that single posting on a closed WhatsApp group from Seamus Feeney...cos ya gotta love Irony right? 🤣) Where did we leave off?  July 2024 It's now August 2024. So let's look at Ireland's excuse for a rarity recording system. Do they produce monthly provisional lists as per their own system outline? - No Did they sneakily change the wording on their website from "Monthly" to "Regular"? - Yes Do they even produce this regularly? - No Do they update the Irish list after the publication of each Irish Rare Bird Report? - No Are you lucky if that happens once a decade? - Oh dear, No. After announcing that...
Read more

Racism and Bigotry in Birding

Image
It's hard to pick up a newspaper these days and not read about something the new moniker "alt-right" are up to. The rise of racism to more mainstream levels is undeniable. Do we, as birders, need to have this discussion though? Do we know it's out there, among us? I'm pretty sure we do. It's tempting to believe the best about yourself, and this extrapolates to ourselves as a group; as birders. It's tempting to believe that the hobby of birding, taking place in nature, with a holistic, interconnected view of nature, would not harbour backwards, ignorant, scumbag neanderthals, that would discriminate on the basis of colour, creed, ethnicity, sex or sexual preference...over the past two years I've learned, sadly, that this temptation would lead you to the wrong conclusion. Birding, like any other microcosm of humanity, has it's share of these regrettable people. When I say over the past two years, I mean, perhaps, I have been just as ...
Read more