The Quiet Picture

Since not many people seem to enjoy the morning hours, I was fairly sure that I could photograph the flower I missed yesterday in peace and quiet this morning. It was a lovely warm weather for cycling and when I got to the lake, I found that the sun hadn’t quite reached the flowers yet, making me wait for a moment. I didn’t mind this at all – it really doesn’t get much better than sitting down by the lake with the sun warm on your face. Even the horse flies and mosquitos hadn’t woken up yet so I was really able to relax.The flower, by the way, is Mentha arvensis (corn mint / åkermynta / rantaminttu).

There’s one thing for sure about botany. When you have once seen a flower, it becomes a lot easier to see it again, even if you somehow kept missing it when it was right under your nose to start with. As I said yesterday, I had never seen the water lobelia before. But now I saw them right next to the parking – didn’t have to walk hundreds of meters along the shore to find them.

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I really wanted to photograph butterflies and I hoped that the old field would yield me these winged beauties this time. Well, the field yielded something else winged – horse flies and mozzies most definitely had woken up. Protected inside my Bugshirt I was ok, even if I had to keep moving the mesh hood around when it touched my forehead and got soaked in sweat, kind of foggy to see through the viewfinder like that!

Anyways, I found another “new” flower. I have a slight frustration about yellow flowers – there are so many of them! But this yellow flower somehow seemed different, and when I got closer, I instantly recognised it as something I hadn’t recognised before. I took my pictures and had a look around for the butterflies, and finally found one. Happily I photographed it until the constant buzz of the horseflies and the sweat running down my face were driving me crazy, so I got out, trying not to trip on the numerous grooves on this old field, perfectly hidden by the thick vegetation. At its worst you just have to feel your way through, a few times I got close to tripping when I stepped in a groove when I expected level ground.The flower is Hypericum maculatum (imperforate St John’s-wort / fyrkantig johannesört / särmäkuisma).

When I got back home, the clouds were definitely gathering and it was thunder on the way. I watched the clouds pour out their contents on the far hills and waited for the storm to hit us, but somehow we got spared even if the roll of thunder was loud and clear. When the sun came back out, I decided to go cycling once more. When I got to Hembygdsgården, I saw that the tarmac was wet in some shaded places. Talk about local weather… it never rained a drop at home. After I got back home, the second thunder front finally reached us and now we also got the much needed rain. Having learned for my tv-blowup, I kept everything disconnected from the mains. Which means that I couldn’t work on my new images, but I was able to write the text for this blog using my little PowerBook on battery power. Love it!

…and then a bit later publish the post with the images, even if I still can hear the thunder in the distance.

Although we are not suffering from such severe heat waves and drought as the rest of Europe, the water levels are low in the lakes. This provided me an opportunity to walk on the shore of the Loossjön lake, as during normal water levels you either get bog or forest right to the edge of the water, making it impossible to follow the shoreline. The lake is at least partly artificial though, I’m not entirely sure but I reckon that there used to be a small lake that was then made larger when a dam was built. The dead and sunken trees that are lining the shore are proof of this, especially all the pine roots which at some places build up large lattices and make me wish that I could take one of them home.It started to look like these roots would be the most interesting thing on the shore, when I suddenly came across some flowers growing right in the water (not waterlilies!). I was fascinated – I had never seen this flower before! Happily I settled down to photograph them and tried to ignore the multitude of horse flies that fill up the gaps that mosquitos leave when it’s sunny (although sometimes you get pestered by both). When I got home, I checked my flower book and ID’d the flower as Lobelia dortmanna (water lobelia (EN), notblomster (SW), nuottaruoho (FI)). Apparently, a fairly common flower, so I must have just been missing it until now.

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I discovered another new flower on the shore as well, but close to the parking. I tidied it up and was about to get my camera from the car, when another car appeared. I just stared at the people in disbelief – they went swimming right in front of the the flowers I was going to shoot! I was so mad I could’ve screamed, this really is not the first time a similar thing has happened. I took a deep breath, counted to ten, and did my shoreline walk instead. The light was long gone by the time I got back, not that it really mattered – a new car load of people had arrived instead, swimming in front of the flowers. Oh well.

I have mentioned before that I don’t particularly like the sea – I prefer the lakes. But I make exceptions, and one of the most notable ones is Hornslandet, east from Hudiksvall. The shoreline is stunning – very barren with mostly stone beaches. I have nothing but admiration for the vegetation that survives under these harsh conditions. A day is easily spent exploring the shores and forests and marvelling at how nature adapts to the life on the edge. And when you get tired of that, visit the old fishing villages of Hölick and Kuggören, have lunch in one of the many picnic spots or just lie down on the sun soaked sandy beach. With places like this, I don’t even mind the distant horizon.