Archive for July, 2009
Winding down
I had ambitions about hiking to the Rödfjället mountain, but the primary goal was the potential flower locations along the Svanån creek north-west from Rödfjället. I didn’t take the main trail up to the mountain and sure enough, I soon lost the unmarked trail I was following, but luckily I was already high enough to see the Svanåkläppen peak so I could just aim to the left of it and be safe. I think I ended up making a few detours anyway but I got where I wanted to go so nevermind. Gotta watch out for those reindeer paths… they start from nowhere and end up just the same way.
Following the creek was easier said than done, the marshland was too wet and I had to take a lot of height to get past. So I didn’t get many flowers, but I did find a nice little waterfall just where the creek starts from the Svansjön lake. Since this hike had taken me to the opposite direction of the Rödfjället mountain, I decided to give it a pass and just hiked back down to the car.
This left me with most of the afternoon to waste. I opted to do some sightseeing by car and took the small road that follows the northern side of the Lossen lake. I found a few nice spots, but the most exciting encounter by far was this small tarn with two red-throated loons! I have never seen this bird before, but I’ve always wanted to, being a big loon fan. I was left missing the 300mm I had at home so I took some macro pictures instead (you know, the best gear you have is the gear you have with you), now that I look at the pictures I wonder if the AF on the 150mm is all good… I got an awful lot of back-focused pictures but I swear I kept focusing on the bird, even if I recomposed after that. There’s been a few other occasions I’ve doubted the AF, but since I use MF about 95% of time, the AF hasn’t been a big enough issue to bother to check it.
When I got back, I still had the whole evening to waste. I was thinking about doing some small excursion, but in the end… this is my holiday! Why should I press myself into filling every hour of the day with some action? So even if sitting in front of the tv is something I can do at home, then that’s exactly what I will do now. I’ll be at work on Monday, there’ll be enough of “must” then.
2 commentsSecond time around
After a few days of rest at home, I’m back in Funäsdalen. I started by taking the northern road to Ljungdalen, I knew the new road was finished so I was curious to see it and it was also nice to be driving it westward, can’t remember if I’ve ever done it before… normally when I take this route, I’m on my way home. Anyway, I can definitely recommend the road, maybe it’s nothing out of the ordinary but it’s worth the detour at least once. You start seeing the mountains nice and early, with a few really photogenic spots along the way.
In Ljungdalen, I headed straight to Torkilstöten. The snowfields are getting smaller and I was absolutely sure that the mountain avens would be blooming now a week later, and yes indeed they are. I was happy! After that, I checked out a couple of places for lapland marsh orchids and early marsh orchids ssp. cruenta. I knew these places to be good especially for the lapland marsh orchid and oh boy was there ever so much of them… And as always, when I took a closer look at some orchids which looked a bit unusual, I started wondering which species it really was. A light version of a lapland marsh orchid? A darker version of heath spotted orchid? Or something in between? By the time I got down to photograph the early marsh orchid ssp. cruenta, I was totally confused. You can be dead cert you’re looking at a cruenta when the leaves are spotted or completely dark on both sides. But if you just look at the flowers – like I did through the viewfinder – I couldn’t really tell the difference from some individuals of lapland marsh orchids. Which I knew must be lapland marsh orchids because the colour was right, and spots only on the upper side of the leaves… dactylorhiza is by far the most difficult orchid genus to make sense of!
Weather – June 2009
Up until the midsummer, June was very cold. We even had a frost night, which luckily didn’t seem to do too much damage to the plants, but it remains to be seen – some of the berries may have taken a beating. Then after midsummer when the weather turned, it got really warm and I missed four days of observations, so the average temperature given here is probably a degree or two cooler than would’ve been if I had the obs’s.
Temperature (High): 25 °C
Temperature (Low): 5 °C
Temperature (Average): 14 °C
Barometer (High): 1026 mbar
Barometer (Low): 1002 mbar
Barometer (Avg): 1011 mbar
Total of sunny days: 1
Rain: 99 mm
Days with rain: 15
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