Monday, August 28, 2006

Weekend Pics


An Adder (Vipera berus) seen at Haukkakallio cliffs near Ruotsinphytää in SE Finland. I was quite excited about this; when one of my friends spotted the snake, I was about 20 foot up a rock climb so had to climb back down to the ground, untie the rope and run over to take the pic. I spend a lot of time in the Finnish forests year round and have not seen one before and I don't remember seeing them in the UK either, where likewise they are widespread but rarely seen, so this was quite special. For people who live in warmer parts of the world, seeing snakes is probably not very exciting but in Northern Europe it seems there are generally only two types of snakes, adders and grass snakes, so spotting one is always exciting.

Haukkakallio is a good climbing venue for wildlife spotting on the side as we saw a pair of Ospreys soring above the cliffs earlier this summer, which are truely splendid birds.

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