Coming back I had my usual sleep/nap before lunch (smoked elk soup!) before packing my stuff and getting ready to be picked up to go to the airport. I had a few minutes where I tried to photograph some of the many birds around the house, but only having a few minutes without being able to hide it never really amounted to anything.
The drive to the airport was uneventful; 1½ hours of pine forest with the occasional lake, but no sightings like the reindeer when I arrived. Kajaani airport is small but having one arrival and departure on most days I guess you don’t need Heathrow-level facilities. There are two gates; one for departures (gate 1) and one for arrivals (gate 2). Hence the security check was just and extension of the waiting area at gate 1 – nothing more was needed.
The flight home went almost as expected – with the exception the second flight was almost an hour delayed. At least I had access to the lounge during the wait, and my dad was very nice to pick me up at the airport – had I not been so lucky I would have been looking forward to a 3+ hour trip home by bus.
Knowing full well that wildlife does what only wildlife wants, doing photography trips like this can be very hit or miss. Having generally had luck previously on my trips I did have fairly high expectations – especially because I would be hidden most of the time instead of out in the open in a vehicle. Therefore I can’t help be a bit disappointed by the limited number of bear sightings throughout the week – though the mother and cubs on the Monday and the sighting Sunday morning definitely helped. I was surprised by how many wolverine sightings we had – but that was just positive. I would have liked to see wolves, but alas. It would have been amazing to see lynx but I was fully aware that wish was a stretch – also due to them preferring live prey (smaller mammals and birds) so the lures put out was not what they would be looking for. And my guide confirmed that seeing them would be near impossible. she had seen one 3 times in the last 18 months – all from the car when it was crossing the road, only photos were from trail cams, and earlier than that only once in 8 years. Wolverines are more curious and are happy with getting close to unknown objects which means that they are much more commonly seen.
In Finland there are app. 400 wolverines (which means we saw 1-2% of the population depending on the number of unique and repeat visits) but 1000s of bears, lynx and wolves. Chances are that we technically have seen lynx with them sneaking around and hiding in the bushes and shrubbery in the dark at a distance. We could have looked straight at one without being able to see it. I should post a photo of a bush with the caption “There’s a lynx, it’s totally there, you just can’t see it because it’s hiding”.
Full album can be seen here.
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