What a difference a day makes!

We were out fishing on Saturday.  It was cloudy and around 0 degrees.  Unfortunately the fish were not interested in our bait and only Emma caught a fish, but the fish got off the hook as she took it out of the ice hole.

On Sunday the sun was shining and it was + 10 degrees.  I had to work as there was going to be an outdoor church service at the Arctic Circle where we have a Polar Circle Portal (this a picture from summer 2010)

It was a 40km drive with the snowmobile

I stopped halfway for a coffee break.

We had a number of people who travelled by snowmobile to the church service

We provided food for everyone, which was fried reindeer meat and vegetables

There were about 30 people present for the service and everyone had a great time.

The weather continues to be warm and the snow is melting very fast now.

Laleh in Nattavaara

Laleh Pourkarim is an Iranian-born Swedish singer-songwriter and former actress. She uses her given name Laleh as her stage name.  Her song “Some Die Young” was the most played song on Swedish radio in 2012.

Yesterday Laleh visited Nattavaara with a film crew who are making a film about her and her life.  They wanted to film her playing the piano in Hembygdsgarden (an old school).

I spent the  morning cleaning all the rooms and clearing snow outside the building.

At 1pm we started preparing food for their evening meal

They were delayed filming at another location and did not arrive until 5pm.  After setting up film equipment

and tuning the piano

they ate the meal we had prepared

They spent two hours filming  and recording her playing the piano and singing.

We all had a great time and look forward to seeing the program on Swedish TV later this year.

Reindeer calf marking

This is my last post before I head with the family for 10 days in England.

Last week myself and Teres were invited to help with marking Reindeer calves near Nattavaara.

We drove 5kms into the forest and then walked a further 4kms to the location where we would be marking the calves.  We arrived at about 9pm.

We made coffee and cooked some food

We set up plastic sheeting over the wire fencing so that the Reindeer calves did not try to escape and get their heads caught in the wire

The Reindeer are run through this narrow gateway and are counted and the calves separated from their mothers for marking.

We started driving the Reindeer into the pen at around midnight

The Reindeer were herded and sorted in small groups

Some animals were being fitted with satelite transmitters as part of a study on the predation of Reindeer by Brown Bears.

Bloody typical!!!

While I was at my cabin hoping to see a bear, one was seen on the the road near my house in Nattavaara!. It was also seen in some ones garden the previous week.

I have been out and about over the weekend looking for birds and animals. I have found a really large lake just outside Nattavaara

with a nice area of marsh around the outside

There was a White-tailed Sea Eagle sitting at the edge of the lake when I arrived, but it flew off before I could get a picture. There were also Arctic Terns, Bean Geese, 4 Willow Grouse, a Reindeer with a small calve and this Moose

At this little cabin near to the lake

there was a Kestrel nesting and I found this Tengmalm’s Owl

He wasn’t easy to see, but I found that if I did not look directly at him he would let me get closer

until after about 10 minutes I was one metre from him

I promise you it is not a stuffed one!!

I was also out with a local birdwatching group on Saturday near Porjus.

We saw Little Gull, Red-breasted Merganser, Goosander, Osprey, Dunlin, Temminck’s Stint, Common Scoter

3 Oystercatchers (which is a very rare bird up here in Lapland), Common, Green and Wood Sandpiper, Bluethroat, Common Crane,

and a close Whimbrel

Of course we also made fire, grilled sausage and cooked coffee.

A busy week

It’s been a busy, but interesting  week  for me.

On Monday I was involved in a Finnish radio program about Arthur Leidgren and our new nature center in Dokkas.  It was an interesting experience for me as an Englishman to have to talk in Swedish and have my answers translated into Finnish.

If you are interested to hear my friend Alf talking Finnish and me talking Swedish you can listen here.  Select 17:30 – 18:00 and listen from 05:30 minutes on the player at the bottom of the screen.

I was back to Dokkas again on Friday to meet with representatives from Gallivare kommun, to discuss designs and costings for repair/construction of the bird towers and walkways for the nature center.

There was a nice variety of birds there including; White-tailed Sea Eagle, Whimbrel, Tufted Duck,

Wigeon,

House Martins and Waxwings

On Saturday myself and Teres joined a group of local birdwatchers in Hakkas for a mornings birdwatching.  Our sightings included; 3 Little Gulls, 1 Arctic Tern, 4 pairs of Slavonian Grebe, 1 Rustic Bunting, 1 Smew, several Ruff, and Wood Sandpiper

We ended the morning with a warm fire, coffee and sausage.

Majbrasa in Dokkas

Yesterday we held the first event to help raise money for the nature center we are creating in Dokkas  called Majbrasa.  Majbrasa has much history but now it is a celebration of longer days and the arrival of spring, and the burning of old to make way for the new

We opened the old school in Dokkas and put information up on the walls so that people could see and read about what we are planning to do

We also had a room in the school where we served coffee, cake and hotdogs

and another room where a local family performed live music

We also had an activity for children to go out in the forest and search for items on the paper provided to them

People began arriving at 7pm

Some people purchased sausage and cooked over a small fire

others enjoyed the warmth of the brasa are went inside the school for coffee, cake and hotdogs

We left at 9:30pm and people were still there enjoying the live music

As we drove home there was a female Capercaillie standing on the road refusing to move

Goldeneye and Smew nest boxes

Yesterday we had two Yellowhammer in the garden and three Whooper Swans flew over calling.

I drove to the small village of Dokkas yesterday where I was helping Dokkas Hunting & Fishing Club with a nest box project which has been running for many years.  The project was originally started by this man

Arthur Leidgren,

but more about him later.

There were 10 of us there

to clean out about 60 existing boxes around the edge of Dokkas lake

and put up 25 new ones.

The boxes are especially for two species of ducks; Goldeneye (Bucephala clangula) and Smew (Mergus albellus) which used to be very common but due to more intensive logging, there are very few trees large enough for them to nest in now.  We travelled around on snow-mobiles, but both the snow and ice are melting very fast now and driving conditions were very difficult.

It took two and a half hours to complete the work.  We put dried moss in all the boxes for the birds to lay their eggs in.

This is the original type of box Arthur made (he cut them from trees in the forest and carried back great distances on his back).

Some of the new boxes we fixed up with nails

and some were fixed with two webbing straps

In two boxes we found Red Squirrel when we cleaned them out and in this box we found a Tengmalm’s Owl sitting on eggs

After we had completed the work we gathered around a fire on the shore of the lake for coffee, buns and sausage.

We are currently seeking funding to create a nature center in Dokkas in memory of Arthur Leidgren and if anyone reading this knows of any funding sources within the EU, please get in touch.

I am also creating an extra page on my blog about Arthur and the work we are doing to create the nature center.

First course available

It’s now dark by 4pm but things are continuing to progress.  I have just added pictures and text to my post about our new cabin http://naturallore.wordpress.com/2010/10/26/another-cabin/.

Our new website www.naturallore.com is now up and running and I have just published details of the first Sami course we are offering called Skin. wool and fur.  The first five people booking on the courses will being staying in the above cabin.

I am also busy working on the cabin we have in the garden, to make it into a classroom for our craft courses, but more about that soon.

Time goes so quickly

So my mum and dads time here has come to an end in the morning we travel to Kiruna Airport, from where they fly back to England.

For our final visit we traveled to the fjälls (mountains)

and to the Saami settlement at Ritsem.

My parents feel it was the past part of the whole visit

There were many beautiful views

and quite a bit of snow on some of the higher peaks

and at Ritsem I was surprised to see a glacier

I return to Ritsem this weekend for the first 6 days of an 11 day course being trained as a guide for the Gränsleden, an historic trail used by Saami people traveling between Sweden and Norway.  We will be walking the trail and have various Saami tutors teaching us about Saami history and culture, plants and their uses, other local wildlife and much more.

I will not be able to write here until I return next weekend but I’m sure I will have much to write about and of course I will take many pictures.

Village celebration

Last weekend there was a village celebration as part of Hembygds.  Most of the village were there

It was a good opportunity to meet many local people and make new friends.

There was coffee, beer, smoked Röding and Sik fish, Reindeer Kebabs and homemade cakes and biscuits

There were also activities  such as a lottery, darts and shooting.

I imagine there were quite a few people with hang-overs the next morning!!