10 - valkoposkihanhi

Valkoposkihanhi translates literally as 'white cheeked goose'; in English it's the barnacle goose. Supposedly there was a belief in the Middle Ages that they hatched from barnacles. Crazy, and I suspect they knew that perfectly well. But if they did come from barnacles, they must be fish, right? So you could eat them on Fridays. There's a happy coincidence (not for the geese).

I've just enjoyed a rare summer trip to Finland, and I encountered this group of birds in a park while walking along the shoreline of the lake at Lahti. My first thought was, 'Those aren't Canada geese...' No they're not, in fact I think they have quite attractive markings. I haven't been to Lahti before - it doesn't have a major women's ice hockey team - but it's yet another very pleasant Finnish city. Internationally it may be best known as a winter sports centre. Two huge ski jumping towers are visible on the city skyline. It also has a notable Motorcycle Museum, along with its Ace Cafe, well known in the biking community. The Museum passes that crucial test, of being interesting even if you know little about the subject, which certainly applies to me. I'll mention in passing not being impressed, further along that lakeside walk, when I looked in at an ice cream kiosk and inquired about salmiakki jäätelöä, and she tried to palm me off with lakritse flavour ice cream. I like liquorice, and true, salmiakki starts off with it, however the salmiakki (ammonium chloride, but let's not say that, people think they're being fed some sort of chemical, well, they are, but oh forget it) imparts a different and very distinctive taste. Thinking I would be just as happy with lakritse/liquorice flavour ice cream was not okay.

My lintuopas/Finnish bird book is looking increasingly out of date. It's interesting how much animal and bird populations can change in such a short time. My lintuopas, published 1996, states that the valkoposkihanhi boasts 300 pairs in Finland, while the latest figure is 7,400 pairs. There's a lot of migration. Their main nesting areas are Greenland, Svalbard, and Russia's Arctic coast, which is where Finland's migrants fly from. They seem to be protected in Finland but they're certainly hunted.

Here's a bonus! I moved on from Lahti to Joensuu, where this crow posed for me.

I didn't really see many new bird species on this trip. The barnacle goose was the only one, really. But these crows were everywhere. It's a varis, or hooded crow. It used to be regarded as a sub species of the carrion crow, which is more common in the UK, but we do have both. In Finland you'll only see the varis/hooded crow as far as I know. You see them everywhere, maybe a little less in the very far North. My 30-year old lintuopas says there are (were) 300,000 pairs, Finnish Wikipedia says 150,000-200,000. But I can't find any suggestion that they're in decline. I don't think they really know how many there are. Crows are smart, and don't want to be counted.

You may be less interested in the crow, than the fact that I claimed this was a summer trip and it's obviously perching on a pile of snow. It was certainly a surprising sight, but all becomes clear when you see the building behind which the snow has been piled. In the urheilupuisto = sports park. Joensuu is home to the Jokipojat ice hockey team, and their arena is here. As for the varis, and why it decided to come into view just when I was taking a photo, I think it was a bit of a narcissist.