Spring is coming

By now almost all the ice is gone - and yesterday we saw the first trees sporting new leaves. At the same time we are trying to get used to the fact that it is already 2 years since we left Switzerland.

Elephant seals

Our New Year's trip to California included - true to habit - a drive along a stretch of Pacific coastline and - likewise true to habit - a stop just outside of San Simeon. Here is a beach which is popular with Northern Elephant Seals (which have previously mentioned briefly).


Despite having stopped at this particular beach numerous times in the past this was our first time stopping there around New Year. We hadn't been there very long before we sensed that this was a very special time of the year: Excited cheers from the crowd of (human) onlookers and a sudden intensification of the activity amongst the gulls on the beach is apparently the typical way of welcoming a newborn elephant seal.


Newborn elephant seals weigh a 'mere' 60-80 lbs and their skins looks funnily wrinkled and loose, but over the 4 weeks of nursing they can grow to 300 lbs after which their skin looks much smoother ('filled out' in a sense) like on the adult elephant seals.


At that time the pup is left behind by the mother who mates again before going out to sea. In anticipation of mating the large males are busy during this time marking their territories on the beach.


After watching the elephant seals we seated ourselves in the rental car to eat a bit of bread before driving further. There was a bright gull who appeared to know that humans in car with bread meant there might be a chance of getting a bite - so we had company watching us intently through the windscreen from the bonnet until we started the engine and pulled out of the lot.

Sheep on parade

While the cows on parade in Bordeaux took us by surprise, we were expecting a profusion of sheep on Gotland. We were not disappointed...

Cows on parade

It turned out that Bordeaux was hosting a cow parade this summer. For the uninitiated we can report that cow parades are a currently increasing phenomenon. Since the first cow parade in Zürich in 1998 more than 70 cities world-wide have hosted cow parades. In a cow parade a number of artists are invited to design cows in realistic size. Some of the projects are chosen for realisation and the cows are placed at various sites in the public space of the hosting city.

For most of the cows the design consists 'merely' of the painting of a standing cow, but quite a few cows also have more interesting shapes.


Of the the 60 cows on parade in Bordeaux we managed to snap shots of about 50 - most of those can be seen in the 'co(w)llage' below. If your internet connection isn't too slow we recommend opening the image in the original size (about 4.5 Mb - done in most browsers by first clicking the image to view the image only, then clicking it again to zoom to the full size)... a few non-authentic cows have found their way into the 'co(w)llage', so try to spot them.

Sled dogs

Being located above the Arctic Circle, Sisimiut is dotted with groups of sled dogs being kept between the houses. Planning has a quite different context when discussions on housing issues include discussions on where to keep the dogs!


As Air Greenland doesn't fly on weekends, one must fly in Friday in order to be ready to start working Monday morning. This provided time for more leisure-like activities, such as a long dogsled ride Sunday. Above Lisbeth - all dressed up in sealskin on top of her usual winter attire - and apart from the inconvenience of almost not being able to move, it did keep her warm through the whole trip. And below is the lovely ride...

Life signs in the snow

By now Stockholm has been covered in snow for 2 months - and nothing really seems to indicate that the winter will be over any time soon: all day today the thermometer has been showing -14 C (7 F) and the snow is drifting around us in what I believe is technically known as a "moderate breeze" (26 km/h = 16 mph) from the north-east causing it to feel more like -24 C (-11 F)..


But fortunately - on days with nicer weather - we can see some signs of life in all the snow.

BT4: Butterflies

National parks obviously have certain wishes for the behaviour of the visitors, but it wasn't particularly easy to avoid touching the butterflies in Iguaçu - both because there were overwhelming swarms of them in some spots and because the more adventurous of them didn't hesitate to park themselves on backs, hats, backpacks etc.

BT3: South American wildlife

One of the most important reasons for choosing to splurge on the hotel INSIDE Iguaçu National Park was the anticipation that early morning walks in the park would provide us with good opportunities for wildlife sightings. And we were by no means disappointed in this regard - here follows some of those we managed to snap photos of.


This (extended) family of coatis (a South American relative of the raccoon) let themselves be observed quite unperturbed so long as we didn't try to get MUCH too close to them. The four parents were busy eating and didn't appear to pay any attention at all to the kids. This resulted in one of the small ones standing at one side of the road looking quite lost and sad when it missed crossing the road together with the rest of them. Fortunately a sibling came halfway back across the road to lead it on the right track - then it bolted across the road at top speed!


When we saw something behind us on the road the following morning we expected it to be another coati, so we were quite surprised when we realised it was an armadillo. These should be nocturnal, so we hadn't counted on seeing any. It disappeared in the bushes before we got a good look at it, but it was kind enough to re-emerge shortly after to cross the road again. What a strange creature!


Another animal which might not seem very exotic at first was this guinea pig which we saw in the Argentinian part of the national park(s). But it was truly surreal for us to see this common pet sitting on a lawn grazing like some squirrel or other wild animal!


Last but not least we were amazed at our first sighting of the South American swan. We both knew of the black swans of Australia, but neither of knew that there was a specific South American variety of swans. But there is - and it can best be described as looking like a cross between black and white swans...

Throng on the balcony

When we put up the large fat ball last Sunday we were wondering how many weeks it would last.. during the week we had to adjust our expectations, as it was no longer just a Great Tit or two that paid us a visit from time to time: Thursday morning there were no less than ten House Sparrows on the balcony. And sure enough: by this Saturday morning fresh supplies were in demand.

Traffic on the balcony

After looking for them in vain for several weeks we finally found some fat balls at the supermarket. We put one up on the balcony and a few minutes later there was quite the traffic of Great Tits out there.

Skansen

Last weekend, Lisbeth's mother came for a visit and beside showing our apartment, Solna and Stockholm, we also went to 'Skansen'. Skansen is an open-air museum with old houses from all over Sweden where costume dressed guides gladly explain about the 'olden days'. It is located on a wind-swept hill top on Djurgården, and since winter has come to Stockholm, it became a rather cold adventure after a few hours - but luckily we could then enjoy 'Bellmans Pyt' (a traditional hodgepodge dish) in one of the inns.

For us the most interesting part of Skansen was however the zoo section - again primarily with Nordic animals.

Relaxing seemed to be the chore of the day:





Eventually this last guy did find enough energy to raise his head so we finally got to see a 'real' moose, i.e. one with antlers!

Ranua Zoo

We decided to make a day trip to Ranua to visit Ranua Zoo. The trip started in Rovaniemi with an almost full minibus. During the 80 km south-east towards Ranua the bus slowly emptied as unmistakably local passengers got off one by one along the route.


Ranua Zoo turned out to be designed in a very pleasant way: Rather than clearing the forest to make way for the park they had simply let the park be in the forest - one walks through the forest along a path from animal to animal. Additionally the park was notable for having only Finnish and Arctic animals - without seeming in any way boring or limited.


After we had been through the park, we glanced at the watch and decided not to walk to Ranua town and just wait outside the park for the next bus back to Rovaniemi. While we were waiting we saw a squirrel who had found a treasure: some french fries which he fetched one by one in the trash can. Later the bus came: this time a rather large bus - but there were no other passengers on it when we got on. Since the bus came all the way from Kajaani we kind of hope there had been some other passengers on it earlier on the trip..

Finnish signs

In Finland there's a number of signs on the roads - several of which were new to us.

Actually there were surprisingly few mosquitoes - possibly due to the unusually dry and sunny summer this year. We spotted neither reindeer nor moose out in the wild.

And apparently it wasn't snowmobile season either.

Flash backs

Although we have moved quite a bit north there are a number of things here in Solna which are not all that different from phenomena close to our previous homes. One of the first warm evenings we had this view from our kitchen window:

... and that does remind us of Swiss hot air balloons.

Not long after that Lisbeth met this little fellow:

... and he is quite similar to his American cousin.

One of the local lakes has this fountain:

We believe this must be by Genevian inspiration.

And although there are not quite as many rabbits here as there are ground squirrels in Goleta, we do see them almost every day. Also, we nearly ran one down - just like we had to keep an eye out for potential road crossers on the bike paths around UCSB.

Spring in Solna II

Another consequence of the arrival of spring is the hatching of eggs - accordingly we have lately had rich opportunities to see ducklings, goslings, and ..eehh.. 'cootlings'.

Particularly the geese are abundant in numbers - and they are not exactly shy. When we stopped to take a picture they did not walk away. Rather, they came straight at us and crossed the path right in front of us.

A funny thing about geese is that goslings have a tendency for following the more dominant couple of geese they encounter, which is why we've seen a cluster of some 20-30 goslings.

A completely different story is the fact that geese are displacing other species and are considered a plague. Accordingly they suffer the trauma of occasionally having their eggs punctured.

Click the image for a larger version.

Cats in Vernazza and thereabouts

On our first morning in Vernazza we went down to the harbour and found a black cat lying on the stones enjoying the sunshine. When we returned the next day it was overcast, but we soon discovered why the cat found it a nice place to be - a man was sitting there fishing and when we landed a rather small fish he threw in the direction of the cat.. action came swiftly:


Later, we saw another cat well educated as to where it's interesting to be - the way of slowly approaching the entrance seems to indicate previous experiences of not being quite so welcome here. Perhaps self-service is the name of the game...


On one of our hikes between the villages we came upon a spot where some furniture had been set out along with a sign imploring us to feed the poor, hungry, homeless cats that were to be right around this spot - it's possible that the cat in question were indeed homeless, but they didn't appear scared of humans, poor or even hungry. In fact they appeared to quite well fed and were on the whole much too lazy to be bothered to get up from their spots in the sun to go over and even look at their far from empty bowls of food.

Bear and Bernese Oberland

According to legend Bern is named for the bear that the founding Duke of the city shot on his first hunting expedition in the region. Therefore, there is of course a bear pit in Bern today. Only a single bear was outside when we walked by but we hope that he has some friends, just as we are happy that they are busy building him a new ... ehr.. pit. He did look healthy though, although perhaps slightly annoyed that we didn't throw him some goodies.

As mentioned, the oldest part of Bern is surrounded by the river Aare on three sides and since this area in addition comprises a ridge, it provides excellent views of water several places around the city just as one can see as far as the Bernese Oberland on a clear day. From the top of the cathedral tower we could just make out the Jungfraujoch where plenty of snow is still to be found.
We would recommend enjoying the view above from the micro brewery with the lovely translated name: 'The old tram depot' (http://www.altestramdepot.ch/htm/home.htm) (OK... that sounds a lot funnier in Danish, the English and German versions are quite similar) where they serve pretty good beer and hearty food in a relaxed atmosphere seated by communal long tables. In the summer time their terrace must be the ultimate spot to enjoy a cold lager.

The various levels in the city produce a need to easily reach one level from another so by the cathedral a public elevator is found. This way one can quickly reach the gorgeous little cathedral park from the river level. We had no desire to leave the sunny areas though so for once we just admired the lovely old building instead of trying out the structure.