Il Dolce Far Niente: Animals

July 2012

In Ticino Canton (CH), on the ponds where Ticino river lands on Lake Maggiore, there is a nice Nature Reserve area called Bolle di Magadino (Ponds of Magadino). It's a flat land, quite a rare though in the region. However, it is surrounded by mountains on south and north sides, and the lake, Lago Maggiore, on west side.

Revisited area and did longer walk there now than last winter. Was hopeful of seeing large variety of animals, all sort, but they kept hide of me most of the time.

At winter time the sun didn't appear in the area, whereas now in summer time it hit straight there. However, trees brought good shades, helping to survive of a hot day.

Walking, bicycle riding etc. are very limited there, though some predefined paths do exist. Plants cover quite a lot of areas which in turn offer good hides for animals who are not so keen on publicity of human beings and their photo equipments.

Did first a walk around the northern area. Then moved to southern area and had another long walk there.

Saw one very rare view there while walking; a snake was on the tree and had a fish on its mouth, see photo below. It was near the river, obviously it had just raised from there and climbed into a tree and planned to have a peaceful lunch.

Walked route in northern and southern parts, altogether 13km. Ignore vertical line between areas (view in a larger map):

Some photos

Enter to Nature Reserve

Bolle di Magadino ends to Lake Maggiore

There were several ponds ...

... and several meadows with massive trees

Ponds were good hideaways

Supportive tree

A Barnhouse

Left on purpose?

I could run there

Highway

For pedestrians

Ticino river

Variety of birds singing, but couldn't spot them on these trees

Beautiful city of Locarno

Growth

Daily Frog

Wild Asparagus, Yum!

Lazy Sunday

On Boardwalk

Tasty!

Almost ready

Honey Honey

Yellow

Siesta

A break

Where's my family?

A beauty

Biiiiig fish

Tied

Spreaded

Another beauty

Nice dots

You hear the sound, too?

Hmmm ... where to hop next?

Plants

Lunch time

Captivating

Use your wings!

Good smell

Oh gee!

March 2012

About two months ago I was diagnosed a repetitive strain injury in my heel. Due to that, a doctor kindly asked me not to do any activities. Since then I've done Indoor Cycling, which by the way is boring, as well as spent some time at the gym.

Today I did a bold move and decided to have a Sunday walk outdoors, the first one in about two months. Weather was gorgeous, temperature some degrees under zero, clear blue sky with the sun warming the air. I knew my heel would not tolerate heavy exercise, so decided to do a short walk (at the end it appeared to be some 8km ...). The weather insisted to take camera with me.

I have had time to look at my previous outdoor photos. Clearly one thing have been missing in them, i.e. proper pictures from animals, although there were several ones showing some pile of waste of them. That concluded where to go for a Sunday walk, to Korkeasaari island. There's the zoo of Helsinki, one of most important tourist attractions of Helsinki. Maybe now I could catch some photos as animals stay behind fences and could not disappear from my camera (well, as a matter of fact now I know that they can even do that).

There are two way to reach Korkeasaari (aka Högholmen) island by public, a ferry from the Market Square (at summer time) and by road via Mustikkamaa island (by walk, bicycle, bus etc). Did the latter.

Ticket cost 10 Eur per person. Funny to find some skis standing on the wall (some people had arrived by skiing!). There's a quite new bridge, a nice way to reach the island. Lots of snow everywhere, all paths were frozen and really slippery.

Didn't go inside of any animal house but stayed outside. Big cat species were my favourites, lions and leopards were astonishing. However, maybe seeing Lynx so near on a snowy place was the highlight.

Below are some photos. I have kept fence or window visible in most of the photos just to remind that I was at the zoo, and so were them, too.