foresttwitcher
Virtually unknown member
Having had a brief taster of life above the Arctic Circle in 2014 I decided on a trip for northern latitude species this spring.
I usually prefer to do my own thing but assuming that I could walk around looking in trees for many weeks searching for Boreal Forest specialists I opted for a couple of guided days and, despite the price, booked with Finnature last autumn; on the basis of their good reputation. Once they had let me know there were sufficient numbers to confirm the trips were going ahead I booked flights from London to Rovaniemi, via Helsinki, around the chosen dates (through Expedia) and a car from Budget through Rentalcars.
Realising this was going to be a pricey trip, I planned to live out of the car for most of the time but due to the very early meeting times for the guided days I decided to have a decent place to sleep in this first phase so booked the cheapest local accommodation I could find for the first four nights through Trivago.
For site guides I used 'Finding Birds in South Finland' & 'Finding Birds in Lapland' by Gosney and had 'A Birdwatcher's Guide to Norway' by Tveit from my previous visit. My trusty Collins was taken for ID back up.
Monday 21st May:
Not a long drive to Heathrow from my home but it was good that I left a bit earlier than should have been needed as my satnav failed to get me to the off-airport parking I had booked, the written directions were a bit ambiguous and the signposting was non-existent until I had stumbled accidentally into the access road. Still the parking and bus transfer were painless as was check-in despite the fact that when I checked-in on line the previous evening I only then remembered that I had not booked a hold bag so a last minute change had to be made. The problems began when the gate number for my Finnair flight appeared on the departures board along with notification of a 20 minute delay; by the time I reached the gate this had become 40 minutes, an hour by the time of boarding and 1 hour 20 minutes once a take-off slot had been found. Apparently down to a fault in one of the aircraft's hydraulic systems so I suppose it is only good that it was found and rectified. I'm not normally one to get wound up by such things but given that I had only 1 and a half hours between the scheduled landing and my onward flight I was beginning to think it may not go too smoothly. As expected we were on final approach about the time my flight was about to take off! The ground agents were ready and confirmed I was booked on the next available flight to Rovaniemi - just over 41/2 hours later than planned.
So eventually, after visiting the Budget desk in Helsinki to confirm the car hire desk in Rovaniemi would be open late in the evening, a telephone call to my accommodation to arrange for a key to be left accessible for me and a nice meal courtesy of a voucher from Finnair, I was heading north. The flight arrived on time, the bags emerged quickly and the car hire formalities went OK but it was still nearly midnight by the time I had entered the co-ordinates of my apartment in the sat-nav and was ready to set off on a more than 21/2 hour drive back south. But as it didn't really get dark, just dusk for a couple of hours, the birding started straight away with the expected airport building House Sparrows and a Magpie in the car park but better was to follow on the journey with a couple of pairs of Whooper Swan in roadside fields and a number of Woodcock flying low over the road in forested sections.
At about 02:30 I had settled in to my apartment in Oulu after what felt like a long day.
I usually prefer to do my own thing but assuming that I could walk around looking in trees for many weeks searching for Boreal Forest specialists I opted for a couple of guided days and, despite the price, booked with Finnature last autumn; on the basis of their good reputation. Once they had let me know there were sufficient numbers to confirm the trips were going ahead I booked flights from London to Rovaniemi, via Helsinki, around the chosen dates (through Expedia) and a car from Budget through Rentalcars.
Realising this was going to be a pricey trip, I planned to live out of the car for most of the time but due to the very early meeting times for the guided days I decided to have a decent place to sleep in this first phase so booked the cheapest local accommodation I could find for the first four nights through Trivago.
For site guides I used 'Finding Birds in South Finland' & 'Finding Birds in Lapland' by Gosney and had 'A Birdwatcher's Guide to Norway' by Tveit from my previous visit. My trusty Collins was taken for ID back up.
Monday 21st May:
Not a long drive to Heathrow from my home but it was good that I left a bit earlier than should have been needed as my satnav failed to get me to the off-airport parking I had booked, the written directions were a bit ambiguous and the signposting was non-existent until I had stumbled accidentally into the access road. Still the parking and bus transfer were painless as was check-in despite the fact that when I checked-in on line the previous evening I only then remembered that I had not booked a hold bag so a last minute change had to be made. The problems began when the gate number for my Finnair flight appeared on the departures board along with notification of a 20 minute delay; by the time I reached the gate this had become 40 minutes, an hour by the time of boarding and 1 hour 20 minutes once a take-off slot had been found. Apparently down to a fault in one of the aircraft's hydraulic systems so I suppose it is only good that it was found and rectified. I'm not normally one to get wound up by such things but given that I had only 1 and a half hours between the scheduled landing and my onward flight I was beginning to think it may not go too smoothly. As expected we were on final approach about the time my flight was about to take off! The ground agents were ready and confirmed I was booked on the next available flight to Rovaniemi - just over 41/2 hours later than planned.
So eventually, after visiting the Budget desk in Helsinki to confirm the car hire desk in Rovaniemi would be open late in the evening, a telephone call to my accommodation to arrange for a key to be left accessible for me and a nice meal courtesy of a voucher from Finnair, I was heading north. The flight arrived on time, the bags emerged quickly and the car hire formalities went OK but it was still nearly midnight by the time I had entered the co-ordinates of my apartment in the sat-nav and was ready to set off on a more than 21/2 hour drive back south. But as it didn't really get dark, just dusk for a couple of hours, the birding started straight away with the expected airport building House Sparrows and a Magpie in the car park but better was to follow on the journey with a couple of pairs of Whooper Swan in roadside fields and a number of Woodcock flying low over the road in forested sections.
At about 02:30 I had settled in to my apartment in Oulu after what felt like a long day.
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