Category Archives: Sweden

Sweden in the autumn

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I’ve been to Sweden in most months of the year but never before stayed for longer than a weekend in the autumn. To make up for that, we have just spent over a week staying in rural Sweden to see what its version of the season of mist and mellow fruitfulness is really like – it didn’t let us down.

Staying as we usually do, in a summerhouse deep in the countryside of central Sweden, we spent days wandering the land, experiencing the season getting into full swing.

We visited the Hälleakogsbrännen nature reserve, went to the Bergslagen forest and walked through the woods and lake edges of Färnebofjärden National Park. At all these locations we went looking for wildlife, seeing the scenery change with the season and partaking in some very Swedish activities.

Hälleakogsbrännen is a fascinating nature reserve covering a huge area affected by the major forest fires of the summer of 2014. I’ve visited the reserve a few times now but hadn’t been there for two or three years. The gap between visits gave us a dramatic show of nature’s return to an area so badly affected by fire. Much of the land is now covered by thick birch and fir scrub which is starting to enclose the views. The authorities have built a boardwalk up to a high point upon which they have erected a watchtower. From there visitors can see across the vastness of the forest fire site but also how life is now strongly returning over a decade on. With the autumn colours starting to show, the growth of the birch woodland was clear to see.

It was here that we did the second of the very Swedish activities, grilling sausages on an open fire next to a lake. This followed the first activity enroute; eating a cake for a late morning fika. Grilling in the wild places of Swedish is one of my favourite things to do; making a fire at one of the many fireplaces located across stunning locations, cooking sausages and eating them looking over a forest, river or lake.

Our trip to the Bergslagen Forest, specifically within the Malingsbo-Kloten nature reserve, was primarily to see if we could find European Elk, however, our driving amble through the low hills and alongside the lakes gave us other sights. We stopped at the Skräddartorpsfallet waterfall and went for a wander through the woods to the north of Kloten. We spent time on the walk doing another very Swedish activity; picking lingon blueberries. Our good haul of lingon accompanied meat balls and mashed potato the next night, both in the cream sauce and as a sauce themselves: food doesn’t get much more Swedish than this.

As darkness began to fall, we drove slowly along the forest tracks hoping to catch site of the elk (the area has some of the highest concentrations of these huge animals anywhere). However, our search came to nothing elk-wise but we did follow a mountain hare down one track for a little while which was a great bonus.

Färnebofjärden National Park, which I have written about before, is very close to where we usually stay and some parts are less than 30-minutes away by car. Our first visit was through the nearest point to us which gave us access to the quietest and perhaps most wild part of the park. We spent a few hours walking the tracks through typical Swedish forest; a mixture of deciduous and evergreen trees standing over the ground dotted by large boulders and carpeted by thick mosses and lichens. We came across a wide variety of fungi on the walk and picked a few chanterelles for our dinner. It was quite quiet for wildlife sightings apart from roving mixed flocks of tits and a few woodpeckers. However we did come across elk footprints and wild boar rootings along the paths.

We also went to my favourite part of the national park, at Skäkarsbo, near the town of Tjärnsjö. Here you can find a high watch tower which looks out across a large part of the park, giving wide and distant views. Unfortunately, it was temporarily closed for maintenance but we made use of jetty jutting out into the water nearby and spent time in the sun looking for wildlife. It was clear that much of the summer birdlIfe had already moved south with gulls and terns conspicuous by their absence. However, we did get good views of two white-tailed eagles soaring on thermals, their tails flashing in the sunlight, before they purposefully glided off into the distance.

What I haven’t mentioned yet is the landscapes and scenery. The area of central Sweden in which we stay and spend most of our time is in the dividing line between the southern and northern ecosystems. It is an area of forests, meadows, lakes and bogs. The trees are a mixture of deciduous oaks, birch, alder and aspens, often in clear stands or at the edges of fields, alongside vast areas of evergreen pine forest. As our time in the area moved on, the colours of the deciduous trees changed dramatically. At the beginning of our stay. The autumn changes had only really started with the birch by as the trip progressed the other trees started to turn into a range of vibrant yellows, oranges and deep reds. The naturally sifting colours provided a charming background to the traditional red and white houses and barns that punctuate the landscape throughout the area.

The weather made the views even brighter with most days of our stay having a good deal of sunshine and the only rain came on the last couple of days. The daytime temperatures were not too dissimilar to those of central England at this time of year, with highs around the mid-teens Celsius most days. We even sat outside in the sun a few times, with the day of our arrival being almost summer-like out of the shade. The night time temperatures did drop at times, with low single figure the norm but occasionally dropping closer to freezing.

The wildlife wasn’t saved purely for the trips out into the countryside; the summerhouse itself has a great selection of birds and mammals both within the garden and in the immediate surrounding area. There was a resident brown hare in the garden when we arrived and there were nightly visits by a badger and roe deer. We also had frequent visits by red squirrels to the bird feeders, much to the annoyance of the birds. The feathered visitors included a good range of tits and nuthatches constantly on the food as well as jays, magpies and great spotted woodpeckers in the garden. Further out into the surrounding woodland were green and black woodpeckers and a frequently calling pygmy owl. Our favourite residents close to the summerhouse are the beavers in the nearby lake. After not seeing them at all during your visit last year, we saw two together as dusk on our penultimate evening. We also heard news that brown bear scat had been found in one of the garden of a nearby summerhouse recently; I’m not sure whether it would have been good to see one on our evening wanders! Perhaps it was best to leave that to our planned trip to Finland next year.

Amongst our wanderings we also came across some other notable birds of the landscape including goshawk, marsh harrier, whopper swan, goldeneye, crested tit, willow tit, fieldfare and hooded crow.

I’ve saved the best, and least expected, experience to last. Despite having visited the country throughout the year, most stays have been in the lighter spring and summer months. At these times of year, the sky barely gets dark at night, if dark at all, and it’s a joy to experience such long days. However, the drawback is you don’t get an opportunity to see one of the greatest spectacles of nature.

One evening during this stay, I stepped outside into the rapidly coolly night air to listen for any nocturnal wildlife calls. As I looked into the clear star-studded sky I saw the Milky Way above my head and off to the north what appeared to be clouds. To the naked eye, they appeared to be striped and slightly green-tinged. Having called my wife outside we both took photos with our phones. It was the start of a show of the Northern Lights!!!

Over the next hour or so, both outside the summerhouse and down by the nearby lake, we watched a flickering show of green and purple lights constantly moving in curtains and shafts across the sky. This was only the second time I’d seen them after a pretty tame show in Iceland over 15 years ago.

One night of such views was fantastic but we got a second the following night. The colours we perhaps not as clear but instead we saw rapid pulses of light scudding across the sky above our heads. This was far more difficult to pick up on our cameras, as it just looked like clouds in a still image. However, I also took a photo I had always dreamt of taking but never expected to; the Northern Lights above the summerhouse.

This really was the highlight of the trip but there was so much to like about our autumnal stay in rural Sweden. It was a visit truly in touch with the season, from the birds and mammals, the changing colours of the trees to picking mushrooms and berries, as well as nip in the air as the temperatures fell each evening. It was a visit that gave us a pause in our recently busy lives, to take a breath, to slow the pulse, and to feel more in step with nature’s rhythm. It felt like a celebration of cosiness, changing colours and shortening days, warmed by evening fires and hearty food.

In our morning drive to the airport, the Swedish nature gave us one last bit of joy. Travelling down the fast road to Västerås from Sala, we saw a large bird flying low over the tree tops before crossing the open fields and making its way across our view. At first we thought it was a grey heron, having seen a few during the week, but as it got closer we could make out the clear silhouette of a big bird of prey. It was a golden eagle brightening our journey home!

Sweden: A wild world less diminished

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Our annual trip to Sweden has come to a close again and as usual it provided a stark reminder of just how nature-depleted the UK is. A thought I’ve had since I returned was how glad I am to be living in a rural village rather than a city; the contrast would be even greater and my gloominess about the state of nature in the UK even worse.

We are fortunate to be able to stay in a very lovely Swedish summer house out amongst the forests, meadows and lakes of central Sweden, about 125km north-west of Stockholm. The location is on the break between southern and northern Sweden; just a little further south, the landscape opens up into large arable fields and further north the forest cover is much greater. Our home for a week or two each year, feels a little softer where the influence of agriculture is lighter and the wild a little more, without being deep wilderness. 

Over the course of the week, we went canoeing on a nearby river, went swimming on the local lake just a short amble from the summer house and we visited the national park an hour to the north. Each of these activities was accompanied by wildlife but even just sitting on the deck at the from on the house brought wildlife sights and sounds.

Whilst the birdlife in this year’s trip wasn’t as plentiful as last year – two weeks in June being more productive than one week in July – the birds around the house still provided some little stars including marsh tit, willow tit and the very lovely crested tit, and on a few evenings we saw roding woodcock on an aerial ‘racetrack’ above the tall treetops. 

As shown in a previous post, the mammals in the garden included brown hare, badger and fox but this year we missed seeing any red squirrels and we didn’t spot the beavers down on the lake. We did see plenty of roe deer, including one doe with two fawns, as we drove through the countryside but we weren’t as fortunate as my sister-in-law who saw a cow and calf European Elk as she drove home from work on our last day.

Out on our canoeing trip, the raptors were the stars of the show with a distant and very high white-tailed eagle, a hobby exploding from a reedbed, a honey-buzzard drifting slowly past and two ospreys circling above us as we paddled across a lake.

Swimming in the warm waters of the lake has quickly become my favourite activity of a Swedish holiday (after only learning to swim well in the last few years). In turn, my favourite part of that is to float on my back and watch the swifts chasing around the skies above and the dragonflies hawking over the water’s surface.

Our stay wasn’t all birds and mammals though as we had a very good view of a sunbathing adder as we walked through a lovely bit of forest after we had cooked sausages on an open fire in front of one of the wind shelters that are dotted around the countryside. The wildflowers seems more plentiful than at home in Northamptonshire, the roadside verges packed with flowers of many kinds although the lovely, but invasive, lupins were mostly well past their best.

All this nature, that was so easy to find, is in stark contrast to nature at home. To be fair, Sweden is a much bigger country and one fifth (or so) of our population, so the human footprint is always likely to be bigger in the UK. However, the tolerance of larger wild animals is much greater (albeit not without its debates), the use of chemicals in farming appears less and the almost unstoppable desire for ‘tidiness’ in the countryside does not seem to be present. Overall, the balance of human control over natural processes seems far less and as a result wildlife and wider nature are far better for it.

I wrote a post a few years back about my ‘yearning for nature’ and each trip I take to Sweden makes that yearning for wild places and an abundance of wildlife even greater.

Just to make a bit of a mockery of this post, most of this post was written sitting in my sunny back garden, on a warm summer afternoon, when a fox jumped onto and walked along the top of wall opposite, swifts, swallows and buzzards were in the sky above and I could hear green woodpecker calling from a nearby tree and a red kite crying in the distance. It’s not all bad in the UK and my little corner of Northamptonshire has quite a lot of wildlife, but it’s just not as rich as I wish it was.

Sweden: Nocturnal Animals

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We’ve just returned from a week’s stay in the Swedish countryside and during our stay I put out my camera trap for several nights. I usually place it in the forest behind the summer house but this time I placed it in the garden and put out some peanuts to see what might pay a visit.

On the first night we had this nervous looking brown hare…

After a couple of nights of no more than pigeons and blackbirds, I caught this badger snuffling up the peanuts…

…and on this last night, I caught this fox, again nervous around the camera.

These are lovely little snippets of life in the darkness outside while we slept. There were some mammals missing that I would love to catch on camera at the summer house. We didn’t see any red squirrels at all during our stay, despite them being very common, and we have caught a moose in the camera viewfinder out in the forest before. Most of all, I would like to snap a pine marten which have only been seen once from the house in the last few years that my family have been going there – maybe next year!

(Ignore the date stamp on the videos – I didn’t reset it when I inserted the new batteries).

A Swedish snake

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We’re in Sweden at the moment, visiting family and the lovely wilderness. On a walk this afternoon, we stumbled across this adder warming itself in the sun. We first thought it had eaten a big meal but, following a query on the image below from a friend, the snake might be a pregnant female with a belly full of youngsters. I, firstly, had no idea when adders give birth and, secondly, that they actually give birth, to live young. A bit of googling revealed all and this adder might be expecting her new arrivals in August or September.

Hopefully, I’ll be going another post or two on our Swedish travels.

Wildlife holidays – a look back on a life-changing first trip

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Next month it will be 15 years since I had a holiday that, with no exaggeration, changed the course of my life.

In 2009, I was in my eleventh year of my career and settled into a routine of working long hours and doing far too little with my time away from the office. I had long held an interest in nature but was doing absolutely nothing about it apart from some cycling in the local countryside and occasionally thumbing through the pages of BBC Wildlife Magazine. Essentially, an interest I had held since childhood was a barely burning ember of what could have been a passion. 

However, a spark from the ember had been floating in the air for sometime, wafted by the pages of that magazine, in particular the pages showing adverts for wildlife holidays. Every once in a while I had noticed one of those adverts and had a cursory look at the linked website. On one such visit to those pages I came across a holiday that would eventually catch that spark and ignite it.

From being a child, I always felt a calling of the northern forests – probably after seeing pretty rubbish 1970s American TV movies about families surviving in the wilderness either after a shipwreck or heading out to escape the rat race. After very little Googling, I found the one I remember most, called ‘Sea Gypsies’. There were more including ‘The Wilderness Family’, with the father of the family seemingly always played by Robert Logan. 

The holiday I had noticed was to just such forests, but those of central Sweden and the Bergslagen Forest in particular. It seemed a good trip on which to test whether liked such holidays; it was only a short distance from where some of my family live and, so I could see them while also having a few days in nature.

Having already arrived in Sweden a few days earlier, I was given a lift to the local airport at Västerås where I met the guide and the four other guests, before we headed out for the one hour drive to our venue for the first three of the next four nights. We were staying at the basic but very comfortable hostel-type accommodation of Grimsö Wildlife Research Station, which is part of the Swedish agricultural university. Here, amongst other things, they research the interaction of the country’s wildlife with farming.

That first evening, after we had settled in, we headed out in the minibus to search for European elk (älg in Sweden and Moose in American). The sun was dropping slowly, occasionally blinding us as we headed towards it amongst the roadside forest. It had rained not long before leaving Grimsö and the last of the springtime warmth from the early May sunshine was evaporating the lying water and steaming off the road’s surface with mist forming down at the bottom of the shallow valley meadows. We turned off the quiet main road and onto unmade dirt tracks, slowing down to a crawl as we rounded bends and came across each meadow amongst the thick pine forest. We drew a few blanks at first but eventually, standing at the edge of the trees, we saw two dark shapes emerge and there were two adult elk quietly grazing the long, damp grass. They after a little while sloped off into the forest but we were to come across more as we continued along the tracks, finding 17 in all over a couple of hours. In some ways these creatures were the stars of the trip, not just because they are the ‘kings of the forest’ but because we saw a lot of them. Quite often on such trips you get fleeting glimpses of an animal’s hind quarters as it disappears into dense undergrowth but in this case they were very easy to see feeding at dusk in numerous forest clearings.

Before returning to Grimsö, we stopped the minibus at the base of a walking track and hiked the short distance up to a rocky clearing high above the valleys. It was here that we would have our first attempt at trying to converse with the local wolf packs. With a bit of instruction, we cupped  our hands around mouths and howled out chilly evening air over the hills and forest. After 10 or 20 seconds, we stopped to hear if we had a reply. Unfortunately, there no howls coming back and after another failed attempt, we headed back down to the waiting minibus. We were told that the wolves could have heard us much further away that we could have heard them, so I liked to think that they had indeed called back but just out of earshot.

The next morning, after being out late, we had a walk through the forest looking generally for wildlife and experiencing the Swedish wilderness. The evening before was the first time I had ever been in a wolf territory and it stirred something visceral inside me, a true sense of wildness and some trepidation. Even walking in daylight in a group of people, I felt the presence of wolves and a deep feeling of the wild and untamed. Walking across the uneven, moss and rock covered ground amongst the birch and pines, we found wolf prints, scat (droppings) and the very old remains of a wolf-killed elk with only fur remaining. That walk, rather than the attempt at howling the evening before, triggered a yearning to see wolves in the wild that has never left me and it has led to more trips in search of them in several more European countries.

The evening was spent focusing on beavers with a canoe trip on a quiet and slow-moving river. We were picked up by another guide and made our way to a nearby river bank where we unloaded three large Canadian-style canoes and launched them into the river. At dusk we moved off and paddled calming up stream, hearing the slowly quietening birdlife and the rippling of the water against the side of the canoes. Our patience was tested with a long wait and we had seen no sign of the animals by the time we turned back to our launch site. However, almost as we were about to give up hope, we came across a dark lump floating around in the water. A brief glimpse ended with a loud slap of its tail and it dived beneath the water and permanently out of our sight. We returned to minibus with only that short sighting of the beaver and with a little disappointment we headed back to Grimsö for the night. Little did I know that years later, in a lake only a few miles away, I would regularly see both adult and young beavers during annual stays at a family summerhouse in the forest.

The second full day started with some free time and I took a walk around the area close by the research station. Our guide had heard there was a very special nest that we could possibly go to see and we headed out to find it. After more walking over the uneven forest ground, we came across a tall tree stump with a shattered top. At the very top, at first hard to see, was a nesting great grey owl, sitting very still on a clutch of eggs. It seemed almost oblivious to our presence apart from an occasional glimpse in our direction but we soon reversed away so not to disturb this amazing bird from its nest.

Later that evening we again headed out into the forest in search of wolves in hope of hearing them howl. We had our evening meal out in the open as we sat around a warming campfire, which kept the cooling effects of the damp spring air at bay. As we sat around the first, the tour guide’s small dog walked to the edge of the huddled group and growled out towards the darkness. A shiver shot down my spine; ‘could there be a wolf out there watching us?’ I thought to myself, a sense of both fear and excitement coursing through me. A spotlight was shone out into the surrounding woods, going from point to point, pausing and moving on, trying to pick up movement or the shining retinas of staring eyes but there was nothing looking back at us. 

Afterwards, we had another couple of attempts, at different locations, to howl out into the forest in hope that wolves in the darkness would howl back in return. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be and we headed back to the research station with perhaps the biggest hope of the trip dashed for a final time.

The last full day started with a long drive north. We may our way to a small lakeside homestead and then out into the surrounding forest. Eventually we arrived at a wooden shelter at the edge of a clearing. Set up with desk chairs, bunk beds and a toilet, we settled in for a long night as we waited for brown bears to appear. We had seen their paw prints on route to the hide but that was the closest we got to them. As it became too dark to see beyond the small viewing slots, we all headed to our bunks and in the morning the view was still empty apart from a cawing raven or two. The ravens called out a range of different sounds, varying significantly over the course of our stay in the hide. We were told that they have distinct calls when a bear is nearby and each time they made a different noise there was a little jump in expectation but each time the hope ebbed away again. We reluctantly and sadly made our way back to the homestead for a very good breakfast, but only after very gingerly opening the door to the hide, just in case the bears were waiting for us behind it.

With another long and uneventful drive back south away from the unseen bears, that was it, my first wildlife trip was over. The only notable moment on the journey was when we were driving along a particularly long and straight road and we saw a car heading towards on the wrong side of the road (for Sweden). It only moved back to the correct side at the last moment and we had slowed down to avoid it. Very kindly, I was dropped off at the home of my Swedish family and said goodbye to the rest of the group as they went onwards to the airport for the flight home.

What had I learned from the trip? Well, it showed me that wildlife holidays can be deeply immersive experiences, spending time in nature with people who know so much about it or, like me, want to learn and share it with others. I also found that you can’t guarantee seeing the wildlife but just being in the places they inhabit can be almost as good, even if you don’t see the species you really want to. I’ve come to value finding the breath of nature in the places I visit, the true experience isn’t always seeing a particular animal but being in locations that have so much wealth in their ecosystems that we simply don’t have in the UK. Overall, that trip really did reignite my love of nature and I returned enthused and energised to actually do something with that passion I had found.

That holiday changed so much. Within 18 months, I’d been on three further wildlife holidays with the same tour company, to the Scottish islands of Islay and Jura that autumn, to Iceland in the following late winter and to Spain, to look for wolves again, the following autumn. The Sweden trip also put the idea of wildlife volunteering into my head and I started to look for local opportunities close to home, although I didn’t do anything about it immediately. However, the idea was firmly planted and it was to become a central part of my life away from work.

In 2011, two years after that first trip, I had no more wildlife holidays planned and work was particularly busy and not very happy. Despite those trips, I hadn’t made any further changes to my life to grow that interest in nature. However, not being happy at work and frustration with my home life led to the biggest decision of my life to that date; to take a year off. 

Over that year, I spent many weekdays and Sundays volunteering locally, nine weeks residential volunteering for the RSPB at three sites across Scotland and Wales, I went on wildlife holidays to Speyside, Norfolk, Mull and Iceland (again) and had 11 weeks in Sweden over course of four visits. This intense period focusing on watching and photographing wildlife, and volunteering, transformed my life after I returned to work, ensuring I was infinitely happier in both my work life and home life.

When I returned to work, I continued to volunteer both locally and more widely; with a local group in Cheshire, with an osprey project in North Wales and on RSPB Ramsey Island, with the latter culminating in a three-month stay in 2019. I also continued to take wildlife holidays including, up to now, another trip to Spain to find wolves (which I did), and others to the Falkland Islands, Finland (successfully finding bears), Botswana (twice), Poland and Zambia plus various self-guided trips in England, to the Inner and Outer Hebrides, and Orkney. 

That trip to Sweden, eventually, via a very winding route, led me to take that second trip to Botswana, to the Kalahari, was where I met my wife, Sarah. So, finally deciding to actually do something about my wildlife interest, rather than occasionally imaging that I should, has changed my life way beyond anything my imagination could have come up with when I was thumbing those pages of the wildlife magazine and glancing at the wildlife holiday adverts.

Sweden: Summer wildlife

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As spring turned to summer, our trip to Sweden in the second half of June once again revealed the richness of the country’s wildlife. Our stay in a summer house in the Swedish countryside enabled us to wander locally and further afield in search of birds, mammals and insects in a variety of landscapes.

The summerhouse is located about a third of the way up the country and around 125km north-west of Stockholm. It lies in an area where southern Sweden transitions into the north, a region of forest, lakes, meadows and bogs.

As always, the gardens and forest around the summerhouse provided a lot of wildlife watching. The warblers were a constant throughout our stay with willow warbler perhaps the backing soundtrack to each day. However, the other warblers were also prominent with blackcap, garden warbler and chiffchaff frequently heard. During the trip we also saw common and lesser whitethroat on our travels.

The area around the summerhouse is also good for a range of small birds including tits (blue, great, coal, willow and, my favourite, crested), nuthatch, treecreeper, house sparrow and tree sparrow and quite a few finches including chaffinch, greenfinch, bullfinch, goldfinch and siskin (in the image below). The garden also had frequent visits from both pied and spotted flycatcher as well as the occasional roding woodcock.

Mälaren, the great water body of interlinked navigable lakes that reaches inland from Stockholm, is about 55km south of where we stay and there are two lovely nature reserves reaching inland from the shoreline, one either side of the large town of Västeras. We visited both Asköviken, to the west, and Ängsö, to the east, for the first time. Both reserves have reedbed and grass marshland against the coast with old oak woodland behind. Oaks are not typical of what we might imagine Scandinavian woodland to be. However, in Southern Sweden, oaks in mixed woodland can be found in many places, and I’ve been to a few.

Both visits to the nature reserves provided rich pickings for birdwatchers, with Asköviken particularly memorable. Walking out to the bird tower on the water’s edge we came across tree pipit and red-backed shrike, and as we approached the tower heard a call somewhat like a parrot but it turned out to be my first ever icterine warbler. Normally, these birds are very hard to see and it seemed this one would live up to that reputation, however, once we were at the top of the tower, it flew into the top of a nearby tree where is stayed and called for quite a while (picked out in the image below).

The bird tower gave us views out into Mälaren over the shallows and small, low islands. There were plenty of greylag geese and a few different ducks. The only waders we saw immediately were lapwings but after a while we saw two summer plumage spotted redshanks in the distance. Even further out, we saw the unmistakable silhouettes of two white-tailed eagles. They were both hunting and eventually dived down to an island and didn’t reappear. On the way back, I had another first as we walked through the woodland. A bird flew up from the ground and into a track-side tree. At first, I thought it was a thrush but looking again it turned out to be a wryneck, and a pretty grainy photo (below) confirmed it.

Amongst other woodpeckers we saw during the trip we green and great-spotted, and we heard a black woodpecker. We also saw a lesser-spotted woodpecker at Ängsö, the first I’ve seen since a winter trip to Poland in 2018.

One of my favourite places to visit within an easy distance of where we stay, is Färnebofjärden National Park and we took another couple of trips up there for to look for wildlife. We had intended to go to grill sausages at one of the riverside fireplaces but the lack of rain over the preceding months had led to tinder-dry conditions and a fire ban. However, we went anyway and we’re rewarded with a short view of a goshawk as it disappeared into the forest after crossing the water. On a second visit to the National Park we saw another white-tailed eagle from the bird tower at Skäkersbo as well as crested tots high up in the surrounding trees.

The trip overall was quite good for raptors. On top of the white-tailed eagles and the goshawk, we saw buzzard, kestrel, sparrowhawk, osprey (including three in one view) and hobby. I do usually see marsh harrier and sometimes red kite but not this time.

We also found a new spot to look for wildlife, to the south of the National Park, at Österbo, where there is a 700m boardwalk crossing what is usually a wet water meadow. On our visit there was little sign of water and little wildlife, but I suspect it’s a good location for migration stopovers for wading birds, waterfowl and cranes. We’ll have to go back in spring or autumn to check.

On the way back to the summerhouse, we very fleetingly saw a third and final ‘first’ in the form of a hazel grouse which flew in front of the car and landed on a track as we drove down a fast main road; unfortunately we couldn’t stop.

I’ve said before on my blog that my greatest interest in wildlife is actually in mammals rather than birds. Sweden’s is much richer in it mammalian life than the UK is, showing how our islands once were, a long time ago, and perhaps could be once again (but probably not in my lifetime).

We didn’t have any real standout mammal moments on this trip but we did see a few; albeit some being on our trail cam. We put it the camera out at night, both at the front of the summerhouse and in the forest immediately behind it. We recorded roe deer, red fox, red squirrel and badger but unfortunately, unlike our last stay, we didn’t record a passing European Elk. We also saw brown hare in the area around the summerhouse. As in 2022, we got good views of beaver at the nearby lake, but unlike last year, these weren’t every night and we didn’t get as close views.

There were reptiles too with two types of snake. We saw a grass snake as we swam in the lake at the summerhouse and an adder as we walked along the forest tracks. We sometimes see slow worm in the garden but not this time.

We also spent a little time looking for insects and specifically looked out for one type of butterfly, finding a poplar admiral along a Dalarna forest track. On our first evening at the summerhouse we also saw a swallowtail. We were also pretty amazed by the sheer number of dragonflies and damselflies as we swam in the lake. Mating pairs would be hounded by packs of followers around our heads.

While seeing some birds for the first time is always nice, these weren’t the best wildlife memories of the trip. There were the swifts racing overhead as I swam in the lovely warm lake, there were the haunting calls of the black-throated divers as we relaxed by our waterside tent and, finally, the bugling of cranes echoing around the forest as we sat outside one evening. These were all quite magical moments that you get only from immersion in nature, even just for a few minutes.

All in all, we saw or heard 95 species of bird over two weeks, which I think must be a record for any holiday I’ve had except for guided trips to Africa.

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.

A close beaver encounter

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We’ve just returned from a week in the Swedish countryside, staying in a summerhouse amongst the lakes, meadows and forests. Over the past 20-odd years I’ve been a frequent visitor to this stunningly lovely country but this was my first since the summer of 2019; COVID getting in the way of seeing family for far too long. I will write a more comprehensive post about the wildlife encounters during the trip but just had to start with the beavers!

Close to the summerhouse is a small lake teeming with wildlife above, on and below the water’s surface. Over the course of my previous stays there, I have made almost daily trips down to the lake to see the family of beavers that live there. Most often, the views are distant, across the lake, around their large lodge, and are certainly not guaranteed. However, this trip was very different, at least at the end.

We saw one or more beavers everyday and up to three at once but the penultimate night of our stay was particularly special. As usual we walked down to the lake towards dusk (although you can often see the beavers during the day) and we stood where the little jetty reaches out into the water. Going any further onto the jetty itself risks its clanking frightening off the animals and sending large ripples rolling out across the lake.

Soon after we arrived a beaver approached us. Not swimming far off on the other side of the lake but within five metres. Judging by its size it was likely to be a youngster from last year, coming up to take an inquisitive look at us. At first it swam into the little bay by the jetty, floating and turning for a while as its beady eyes kept a watch on us. It then suddenly splashed its tail and disappeared under the water. However, it wasn’t gone for long as it reappeared towards the little bay beside us and came back for another look.

Seeing one beaver so close was incredible but once the first had eventually made its way back to the other side of the lake, a second came in for a look. Similarly, it was likely to be a a kit from last year and it was equally as inquisitive and spent as much time floating about watching us and making several passes. Eventually, it too made a final pass and disappeared into one of the channels they have dug a the edge of the lake.

The sightings of these two beavers was made all the more special by the other wildlife in the surroundings and the sunlight as the dusk came in. The background sounds were of calling cuckoos, chattering fieldfares, several roding woodcock, numerous smaller songbirds and some croaking frogs in the lakeside reeds. The clouds lit up by the setting sun as well as the light on the trees gave the water a golden shimmer as the gentle breeze broke the glassiness spread across much of the lake.

This was not only one of the most memorable wildlife moments I’ve had in Sweden but one of the most memorable I’ve ever had. Fortunately, I have some photographs and video that captured the moments.

A fine way to spend Christmas Day

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I was in Sweden over Christmas this year and spent part of the big day out in Färnebofjäden National Park. With Christmas celebrated on the 24th in Sweden, like much of the rest of Europe, this freed up Christmas Day for something else. When I’m in Sweden, there’s little I like more than to grill sausages on an open fire out in wilderness. So my brother, nephew and I headed out into the cold and wintry outdoors for a bit of alfresco cooking.

Färnebofjäden is the closest national park to where my brother lives and is less than an hour’s drive away. The ground was covered in snow but not the nice, deep, fresh powdery stuff but old, hard and icy snow that would have brought the UK to a standstill. Many of the roads were sheet ice but with studded tyres, the journey to the national park  wasn’t too troublesome.

Just near Gysinge, we stopped by the River Dalälven and set ourselves up in a wind shelter on the river bank. Wind shelters, small open-fronted ‘log-cabiny’ huts, are dotted around the Swedish countryside, usually by rivers or lakes. With fireplaces in front and a good supply of wood topped up by the park rangers, the shelters are a brilliant facility used by many.

With the fire started very quickly, we waited for the ash-bed to grow until it was hot enough to cook the sausages. We had a wander around the spot while the fire got going. The weather was cold enough for the river to start freezing with plates of ice growing from the banks outwards, joining together to form a larger sheets. With low cloud and mist, the scene was one of a dark and harsh winter’s day.

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There was little wildlife around in the gloom, few birds could been seen or heard, although we were joined by a treecreeper by the shelter. On the way back, however, we saw a large group of roe deer eating out in the middle of the snow fields.