13 May 2012

Sunday Walk On Karkali Nature Reserve

May 2012

Spring time is great in nature. Birds, actually all animals, are in a great hurry of building nests, getting 'a family' together, planning new members for their families and so on. Plants are growing rapidly. Flowers are in bloom.

Spent a sunny Sunday on Karkali Nature Reserve a week ago. Situated about an hour's drive west from Helsinki, on a peninsula within Lake Lohja.

Terrain favoured herb plants like anemones. And there were lots of them, white, blue and even yellow ones. Mostly Karkali peninsula was covered by deep forest, had some steep rocks near the waterline. Anemones grew in deep forest, too.

There were some marked walking routes, longest about 6km. Stepping off the routes were prohibited. Parking lot was full. Met lots of families with their kids, birdwatchers and other people who enjoyed a lazy Sunday in nature.

Certainly it was a nice place to visit, especially during Spring.

Walked route by GPS (view in a larger map):




Karkali Strict Nature Reserve

Welcome!


Paths

Downhill

Uphill

Slow lefthand corner

Into a coniferous forest


Duckboards

Straight on

Turn right

Hop off


Anemones, Anemones, more Anemones

Aren't they beautiful?

Gosh. loads of them

Even more

On both sides

Damage on Boxing Day

Even coniferous forest had them

He's got a great knowledge of nature,  PPP


Wildlife

A Wood Warbler

A Blue Tit

A Great Tit

Do you have a Twitter account?  I'd like to follow you

Duckboards are not only for human beings

Show me your tongue and I'll show you mine


Plants

Spring flowers in bloom

A White Anemone

A Yellow Anemone

A Blue Anemone

We're not Anemones!

A Kingcup


Tree alike

It's green out there!

Fungus

Retired some time ago


New branch, new life

New Juniper berries, a Gin & Tonic, please!

Colourful moss

There's a nut tree near by


Acqua

A shallow pond

Wetland

Layered


What's Not Allowed?

Hopping with a rope?








05 May 2012

Observations of Spring On Uutela Recreation Area

May 2012

Did a quick visit by bicycle on Uutela Recreation Area (in Vuosaari suburb of Helsinki). Wanted to see how Spring on the coast had progressed. Had high hopes to catch some birdies by a camera lens, too.

Weather was cold; cloudy and misty. It had rained the whole night. Especially visibility and lightness through camera lens was poor.

Tarmac was wet while bicycled. There were awful lot of worms on bicycle lanes. Soon after noticed loads of snails crossing a sandy road. They were not in a great hurry.

Saw a few species of birds. Didn't want to disturb their life too much so stayed in some distance from them. Due to distance and poor visibility, had to use higher ISO in the camera. Noticed later that there was some noise in the photos, mostly visible when cropping some photos.

Some species seen for the very first time of this season: few Sandpipers and lots of Swallows.


Old tree

Protected area

Coming home

Mrs Chaffinch

Mr Chaffinch

A Common Sandpiper

Heading out

A Merganser surrounded by Swallows

A Barn Swallow

A shy Swan getting company

Willows

New gras

New water plant

Birch trees getting new leaves

Lunch time!

Speedy crossing