Of all the creatures in the world, wolves draw me to them more than any other. I have longed to see them for more years than I can remember and I have always thought that getting clear up-close views would be forever beyond me.
I have spent many hours on trips to Spain, Poland and Sweden trying to get even the slightest glimpse of them but usually to no avail. I have seen a wolf, twice, on separate trips to north-western Spain but on both occasions the views were distant and fleeting. On other trips I’ve found the signs of wolves including footprints, scent marking, scat and the grizzly remains of kills, but have often been a few minutes behind them and never caught up.
The first time I stood in wolf territory, in Sweden, I could sense their presence in a way I couldn’t quite understand; something in the deep pine forest, the dark lakes, the misty meadows. It felt different to move through that land knowing they were there. That feeling captured my imagination like no other animal has before or since.
So, to celebrate a rather large birthday recently, we flew to Finland to spend time looking for wolves as well as other mammals that live in the northern wilderness.
…and on one night my dreams came almost unbelievably true…
We headed to the far east of Finland to Kuhmo, not far from the Russian border. After driving out to a ‘base camp’ in the forest to collect some provisions and a couple of sleeping bags, we moved out to within 150 metres of Finnish/Russian no-man’s-land. We entered our two person hide, with its comfy benches, narrow observation windows and holes for cameras, and settled down for a 14 hour stay and what we thought would be a long, and possible fruitless, wait to see wolves.
Defying expectations immediately, a brown bear appeared in front of the hide, followed shortly after by a wolf! They both checked the area right in front of the hide for some of the limited food that is put out to attract them. They appeared indifferent to each others presence; rivals in truce with the food available to both of them. Flying around them were gulls and ravens in good numbers, attracted by the bait but wary of the large carnivores.
As these two wandered off, another bear and wolf appeared and checked out the area for food. The bear took a large chunk of meat and trotted off into the distance while the young wolf continued to hang around, with yet another bear appearing. The wolf soon picked up a large piece of meat itself and ran off perused by the bear into the distance.
During the first few hours of watching, the cloud came in and it rained heavily. The photographs I took were given an extra dimension with the water forming beads on the long grass and changing the texture of the bears’ fur particularly.
We spent around six hours from the moment we arrived at the hide, watching the bears and wolves looking for food and interacting with each other. At one stage, a large male bear appeared and wandered through looking for a meal. In the distance a mother bear and two cubs cautiously moved through the tree line. The male bear spotted them and headed off in lumbering pursuit with the mother and cubs making a quick exit. Later the small family approached the hide from a different location but didn’t stay long, wary about the presence of other bears.
In all, we saw four wolves, the alpha male and female and two youngsters from last year. For a short while three of them came together, the small pack bonding in the long grass. One of the youngsters submissively lay on its back as the alpha male stood over it and the alpha female joined them. This stood out as a the sign of watching wildlife acting perfectly naturally, unbothered by our presence in the hide.
The tense truce between the bears and wolves finally broke towards the end of those six hours as the food diminished and the competition for that which remained increasing. The alpha pair started pestering a bear with the wolves rushing it and the bear retaliating and chasing after them. Some distance away, it was hard to see if any food changed hands but it was clear that the wolves were becoming an annoyance to the bear like crows are to the red kites that float above our garden at home.
Eventually, the bears and wolves melted away into the distance and peace fell onto the area, bar the odd screech of a gull or cronk of a raven. The birds had been there throughout the hectic period with the bears and wolves and the large number of ravens, in particular, provided a backdrop to the feeding. Also making an appearance were several white-tailed eagles, two of which sat just a short distance away, enabling me to get the closest pictures I’ve taken of these huge birds.
As the light started to fall, we were given one last view of the wolves as they reappeared close to the hide, seemingly on the purposeful journey to our rear. The alpha pair and a youngster passed in front of us and vanished off to our left, not to be seen again.
Now started the long wait. With another eight hours in the hide, there wasn’t much to do but patiently sit, scanning the distant treeline and hoping something of interest would appear. The Finnish nights in July don’t get properly dark, instead a light twilight descended on the scene. All the details were still visible, even the trees 500 metres away. Towards the end of the vigil, as the sun rose again, a mist started to form over the land. This turned into thinker clouds slowly moving across the land, from the open area into the trees. As the mist dissipated, a large dark figure moved slowly in the distance, a final view of a large bear.
I barely expected to see one wolf, let alone four, and so close that I managed to get some photographs I have only dreamed of capturing. Without doubt this was one of the wildlife highlights of my life, alongside very few that can rival it.
This night was part of the Finnish Mammals trip operated through Naturetrek and led by the brilliant Belgian guide, Jan Kelchtermans.
Daft Mumblings 