Wednesday on the Water, 17 Jun

I left Suonenjoki under rainy skies about 8:00 this morning and headed west. As I left Suonenjoki, I passed a bunch of strawberry fields... hopefully those berries will be in season when I'm in town. Heading west, I went through stand after stand of beautifully managed pine, spruce, and birch stands. Some of those birch stands were just gorgeous, reminding me of the crosses in a military cemetery... neat, orderly, perfectly spaced. I saw a forester out planting seedlings with his Pottiputki. As I continued west, the skies gradually cleared. The roadsides were awash in blooming lupines and wild carrots. The lavenders, pinks, and whites were fantastic. Further west, blue skies finally appeared, but it was cold. Only 9 C. I arrived in Vaasa about 13:00, about an hour before I was suppose to be in queue for the ferry. I traded in my voucher for a real ticket, and then did a bit of birding. The ferry was late, and we were late departing. We sailed past Finnish island after island after island, out into the open waters of the Gulf of Bothnia, and then, what seemed like forever, headed straight toward Umeå. I had a chance to do some birding out the front window, and picked up a few "lifers". As we pulled into port, I was kicking myself that my camera was below deck in the car, but hey, anyone can take those smoozy island-with-the-scenic-lighthouse-on-the-rocky-island shots, so you get the ready-to-head-out-the-back-door-of-the-ferry-with-the-car photo instead. It was about a 90 minute drive to Vindeln. I arrived at 20:10, ten minutes after all the grocery stores closed. Ack! Deb, Niklaas, Marty Jurgensen from Michigan Tech, and Dan Lindner from the US Forest Service in Wisconsin pulled in about midnight. Tomorrow, sampling the plots.



Birds of the day: Northern Goshawk, Northern Lapwing, Common Kestrel, Herring Gull, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Greater Black-backed Gull, Black Tern, House Martin, Northern Wheatear, Blue Tit, Song Thrush (lifer), Rook, Common Raven, Mute Swan, Eurasian Oystercatcher, Black Guillemot (lifer), Velvet Scoter (lifer), Razorbill (lifer).