Author Archives: daftmumblings

Sweden: Glamping in the wilds

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During our two-week trip to Sweden in June we celebrated our first wedding anniversary (on the summer solstice), and to do so in style, we booked two nights ‘glamping’ out in the Swedish countryside.

After going on my first ever wildlife holiday, anywhere, in the Bergslagen area of Central Sweden in 2009, I’ve always wanted to go back and I found that the same local company that ran that trip offers a whole range of wildlife and nature-focused breaks and holidays. After looking through the options, we decided on camping near Kloten.

The Kloten Lakeside Camp comprises only four individual bell-tents on wooden platforms at the edge of a large lake. Each tent has a double bed, small woodburning stove, bedside tables, chairs and blankets. Outside on the deck are a dining table and chairs, and two very lovely reclined wooded rocking chairs. Each tent also has its own individual compost toilet. Due to the long-lasting dry weather in that part of Sweden, outdoor fires have been prohibited, therefore the fire pit wasn’t available to us, unfortunately.

The camp is located at Kloten Nature Resort, shown in the map below, and the tents are on the east coast of the lake just north of the long, thin island in the centre of the map below.

As we arrived, we were met in reception and after a cold drink (on what was a warm day) we were taken to our tent via a 15-minute boat ride and given an introduction on the way. After we were dropped off with our luggage (we were told we had actually packed lightly, which came as a bit of a surprise) we unpacked and settled in. However, on what was a lovely afternoon, we couldn’t stay still for long. Each tent comes with its own Canadian canoe and we took it for a quick spin around the nearby shoreline of the lake. On our return we took a dip and swam in the lake, cooling us down in the warm late afternoon. However, the weather soon changed as the rain came in and we had to retreat to our tent for much of the evening.

Our evening meal, along with our breakfast for the first morning, was brought by boat, and we heated the former on the very efficient stove in the tent. We started with salmon rolls, followed by large pieces of salmon with potatoes and vegetables, and finished off with cheese cake; all very delicious.

The rain relented after dinner and we spent a little time outside but unfortunately there was no sunset over the lake. We went to bed listening to the calls of a nearby cuckoo. This made the perfect end to our first anniversary; on our wedding day and our first anniversary, we both woke and went to sleep to the sound of cuckoos and one called throughout the wedding ceremony itself. The cuckoo really is our ‘wedding’ bird!

We woke early the next morning. Sun rises at just after 3:30am in this part of Sweden around the summer solstice and the tent canvas did little to keep the light out. Exiting the tent, we were welcomed by morning very different to the previous evening; a clear day of blue sky and sunshine.  We looked up to see three ospreys circling overhead, with two of them making their ‘chipping’ alarm call, perhaps trying to ward off the third intruding osprey. 

After a typical Swedish breakfast of yoghurt, fruit, breads and jam, eggs and ham, we decided to go for a longer canoe. Our lunch arrived mid-morning and we loaded it into the canoe and headed out onto the water. The lake was actually a series of large lakes connected by narrower straights of water. We paddled out for about two miles, moving in and out of little inlets and across the wider sections of lake. We came across a family of black-throated divers, with the parents escorting on little chick and shepherding it away behind an island. The wind started to pick up so we decided to head back but stopped off at the side of the lake for our lunch.

Despite the strong wind, it was lovely spending the late afternoon on the front of the platform over the water. Our dinner arrived along with the last breakfast and we tucked into a beef stir fry, again heated on the tent’s woodburning stove. That evening, we were treated to a proper sunset with the sky glowing orange as the sun dipped behind the tree-covered far shore of the lake.

In the morning we took a final dip in a calmer lake before breakfast, then packed and relaxed before we were picked up in the boat at 11:00am.

The whole experience was fantastic, spending time in the Swedish wilds, swimming, canoeing, watching the wildlife or simply relaxing. The tent was provided with some extra things to keep us busy including a couple of small wooden dalahäst (dales horse), and a knife to whittle them further, and a polaroid camera to take snaps of the stay and an album to stick them in.

Before we went, we were slightly worried there might be a mosquito problem and that it might actually be quite busy being part of a ‘resort’. We needn’t have worried on either count. We didn’t see a single mosquito the whole time we were there, despite there being quite a few where we were staying for the rest of our time in Sweden. The only other people we saw or heard the entire time we were there were a few canoeists paddling past, some distance away. Even if the other three tents had been occupied, they are far enough away that I doubt they would cause any disturbance or interrupt your privacy. 

Overall, the experience was not at all cheap but worth every penny – both the big things and the little things made it. We will remember it for all the things mentioned above but also for the sights of groups of black-throated drivers flying and swimming past the tent, and the sound of their haunting calls echoing over the lake – magical!

The trip was booked through WildSweden with a link to the webpage here.

Sweden: Swimming in Utopia

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Floating on my back, barely moving, with only small ripples on the lake lapping around my head, I watched two dozen swifts whirling around the deep blue cloudiness sky. They were mostly silent, not screaming as I hoped they would, but they were there, chasing, racing and gliding on their flickering wings. They would come closer and then move away, returning again, then disappear far behind my head where my eyes could not follow. Every so often one would drop down low, thrusting its wings behind its back in an upward ‘v’, scooping up water from the surface as it met the bottom of its loop. These were minutes of near perfection, watching my favourite birds while I was swimming in the bath-warm waters of a Swedish lake at the end of a hot summer afternoon.

I’m a latecomer to swimming. Having not been in a pool since my mid-teens, I tried it in my early forties in the sea while volunteering on a Pembrokeshire island. That was the June and July four years ago and I carried on afterwards until my then local outdoor pool closed for the winter. The gap from my teens to middle age meant that I went from a very weak swimmer to a non-swimmer. That summer and early autumn in my local pool enabled me to grow in confidence and I ended up being able to do quite a few lengths on each visit. The pandemic, moving house and generally focusing on other types of fitness activity have meant that I haven’t been swimming since September 2019. However, a two week trip to Sweden provided a great opportunity to start again – but I hoped not from ‘square one’.

We are fortunate to have access to a summer house in the Swedish countryside and have just returned from staying there. Like so many similar locations in the country, it is only a short walk to a swimming lake. The water is dark, being fed from forest streams that bring peat in the lake; this means that the sun warms it very quickly and it was a lovely 22 to 28 degrees Celsius while we were there. The lake is not quite circular, being 200 metres long and 150 metres wide and is shallow at the edges, with a little shady beach, but it’s much deeper in the middle. The lake also has a swimming pontoon that reaches out into the water with a set of steps into the water and a floating platform further out into the lake. This all makes it sound like it would be very busy but actually the two of us often were the only ones swimming there or we were joined by one or two others.

On taking to the water for the first time since 2019, I was surprised that I could swim straight away, no rustiness or uncertainty, no sinking or flailing about. Over the course of the fortnight we stayed there, we swam every day that we could, sometimes swimming twice in a day. By the end of the stay, I was comfortably swimming for 30 minutes on each visit to the lake. My swimming strength increased and I set myself a personal challenge to swim from the pontoon to another smaller one on the far side of the lake. With one abortive attempt, with some swans getting in the way, on the penultimate day I finally swam the 350 metre round trip, and actually without too much difficulty. I never thought I’d be cable of swimming, let alone being able to swim such distances; it might not be far for many people but it was a real milestone for me.

Putting personal challenges to one side, swimming in that lake brought an extra dimension that going to the local pool simply can’t. Swimming there brought me much closer to nature, making me feel more part of nature rather than just an observer. Being in the water put me amongst the flora and fauna of the lake. I swam amongst the lilies and other water plants, and I was buzzed by dragonflies as flew low over the water catching meals and competing for mates. I saw grass snakes making their way over the surface and watched the whooper swans as they formed a new pair bond. I listened to the cuckoo calling from a nearby tree and watched the swallows hawking for insects. If I had swum later into the evening, I may even have come face-to-face with the local beaver family as they started they nocturnal forays across the lake. However, lying on my back, floating under groups of chasing swifts, my favourite of all birds, made the greatest of those connections. This little meadow and forest-side lake, with its warm waters and plentiful wildlife, felt to me like a swimming utopia and I can’t wait to go back.

I’ve borrowed the title, or paraphrased it, from ‘Fishing in Utopia’ by Andrew Brown. It is a memoir of the author’s life in Sweden, where he moved from England as a young man in the 1970s. He explores the history, culture and politics of the country, as well as his personal experiences of love, loss and fishing. He describes how fishing became a way of connecting with nature, escaping from loneliness and finding meaning in a changing world. He also reflects on the challenges and contradictions of Sweden’s social democracy, its environmental issues and its role in the European Union. The book is a blend of autobiography, travel writing and social commentary. written with humor, insight and a large pinch of nostalgia.

First bird survey of the year

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I got up very early yesterday to head out into the Northamptonshire countryside to do my first Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) of the year. Leaving the house before 7:00am on a cold and cloudy Sunday morning didn’t seem very appealing and on arriving at the survey site, in the village of Clipston, the appeal had mostly worn off. However, on starting the first of the two transects the magic of these surveys immediately reappeared. A kestrel swooped down and dropped behind a hedge just beside but quickly flew off as I wander along.

This is the second year that I have been doing the BBS at the grid square around and including the village. It’s a lovely spot for the survey with a mixture of rural village, playing fields, sheep pasture on the surrounding low hills and a little arable land too. This mixture provides for a range of different birds, both farmland and garden birds appearing in the survey.

This first of two spring visits to the site found 27 different species of bird, two more than the same visit last year, and added some further species to the list for the grid square. On top of the kestrel, two more raptors were recorded for the first time, sparrowhawk and red kite, and I added green woodpecker to the great-spotted woodpecker seen on the first survey last year.

The particular gird square hadn’t been surveyed prior to my first visit last year, so it’s great that I’m adding information for a new place into the BBS records, even if the birds seen last year and so far this year are probably what would be expected at the location.

Hopefully, the second visit in May or early June will find a further few new species to the list for the grid square. The list reached 33 after the second survey last year and now stands at 37, so hopefully I might even get to 40 for the site by the end of this year’s survey

Neighbourhood starlings

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Ever since we moved into our house two years ago, we’ve had uninvited house guests staying all year round. From the roof space about our bedroom comes the frequent scratching, squeaking, squabbling and, sometimes, beatboxing of a pair of starlings.

Our relationship with them swings from care and amusement to annoyance and, very occasionally, strong avicidal thoughts. They like to slide down the sloping sides of the loft floor and get into fights with their neighbours, they occasionally like to run around the loft itself (in the pitch blackness) and they sit in the tree opposite their nest hole impersonating all manner of other birds.

They also bring up their broods just above our sleeping space. Just as the chicks first hatch, we hear very faint squeaking, barely audible without straining to hear. However, after very few weeks this turns into loud and rowdy cacophony of harsh rasping from countless near-fledglings. For a week or so in June we are woken way before sunrise each day by the feathery idiots and their offspring starting their day like hyperactive gremlins.

When they eventually do leave us in peace and fly the nest, the chicks invade our garden, causing more general disturbance as they endlessly beg their parents for food and fight with each other and their other starling friends.

Once they have left the next they do leave behind a bit of a mess in the eaves of the house but we tolerate it for the entertainment they give us. However, thinking our human guests would not appreciate the same treatment we get, we decided to block up another hole above our spare room. We then installed a starling nest box just below the former entrance. So far they have completely ignored the luxury new home and, instead, the pair decided to start a turf war with our bedroom starlings before trying a new spot above my study.

This post wasn’t meant to be about our idiot lodgers but their foreign friends who visit the UK every year. I do like to seek out murmurations, where the starlings migrating to the country each winter form huge flocks and perform aerial ballets at dusk. We found one earlier this winter a few miles away near to Summer Leys Nature Reserve but haven’t really looked since.

Over the couple of weeks, however, when I’ve been out for a run after work I’ve been seeing growing numbers of starlings around the village. They started as small flocks but very recently they have turned into much larger congregations swirling over the houses. Last night, deciding against a run, we walked up the gradual hill in the village to seek the murmuration out and the video and photos below are the result…

I really can’t be cross with our house starlings when their cousins provide these spectaculars…but we might just be away on holiday this year at the peak of their rowdiness.

Snowdrops bringing in Spring

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This morning we dropped into the churchyard at Chelveston, near Rushden. We had heard that it’s a great place for snowdrops and aconites, and we weren’t disappointed.

There were great carpets of snowdrops all around the church, and with the sun out and the rooks building nests in the neighbouring trees, it really did seem like spring was finally on its way.

Looking at lichen

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We had a walk around the Northampton Washlands basin this morning. It was our first visit and we had a nice walk around the high banks but it was a dull and chilly day so it was slightly uninspiring. The standout moment was stopping by a fallen tree; its branches were covered in a bright orangey-yellow lichen which shone out from the rest of the landscape, providing splash of colour on an otherwise drab winter day.

First new bird of the year

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2022 was quite a good year for me in terms of seeing new birds and mammals. Helped significantly by a trip to Zambia, I added 34 birds to my list with only two of those being in the UK (smew and jack snipe). This took me over the 500 birds mark and adding 14 new mammals took that list to over 100.

After look at a local bird blog this morning we knew there was a possibility of a first new bird of the year at nearby Ravensthorpe Reservoir. Having had a walked there last weekend we went elsewhere for a bit of a wander first but on the way home stopped at the reservoir car park for a quick look to see if the bird was there. Amongst all the other ducks, including the similar-looking female tufted ducks, was a female ring-necked duck. This might have been a vagrant from North America or, just as likely an escapee from a collection, but I’m still going to count it.

A dusk wander for owls

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After seeing reports of owl sightings in the countryside beyond a nearby village, we headed out there late on Sunday afternoon to see if we could locate any. The frost of earlier was still clinging on in shady areas where the winter sun was unable to reach but where the ground had thawed, the footpath we walked along became increasingly muddy. As the sun started to dip, a mist started to rise up from the cold wet ground, shrouding some of the fields.

The low rolling countryside in the Brampton Valley, with large arable fields and low hedges, has quite a few areas set aside for wildlife, with margins left uncultivated and areas sewn for winter bird food. We scanned a few of these areas with our binoculars in hope of seeing the owls but even with their longer grass, perfect for small mammals, we didn’t see anything on the outward leg of our walk. We did see, however, a good number of lapwing in some of the open fields, a bird we haven’t seen much of in the valley before.

On the homeward leg, we had almost given up hope of seeing any owls but as we neared the end we caught sight of another nocturnal animal instead. In the growing gloom of dusk, a fox wandered across an open field and into a small copse. We then noticed at the far side of the same field, a muntjac feeding in the field margin. Just as we turned to walk the last few hundred metres, a white bird appeared in the distance and looped around another small copse, disappearing at one end and reappearing at the other. The barn owl did one more loop of the copse and then flew off into the field behind, not to be seen again.

January has been a good month for owls. At the Nene Washes we saw both short-eared and long-eared owls, while at the same location, as well as Welney and now closer to home, we’ve had good views of barn owl. Having said that, the tawny owls at have been very quiet in the trees surrounding our house over recent weeks but as winter comes to an end, hopefully we will start to here them again as well the little owls we often hear in the spring.