Guest post by Ice Swimmer.
These pictures are from the wetland in Harakka. The summer has been dry and the wetland wasn’t as wet as I had seen it before. Still, it looked quite lush.
© Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
© Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
© Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
© Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
These three pictures (two behind the fold) feature, apart from gudgeons, a small turbot. See if you can spot the turbot in the first picture.
Spot the turbot! © Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
Two weeks ago Mr and I went to our local woods for the first time this year. Living next to swamp and marshland has its advantages, but it also meant that for most of this year the paths were unwalkable, unless you wanted to recreate that child-traumatising scene from the Neverending Story where Ayax drowns in the moor. It was nice, apart from the fact that the mosquitos must have been starved before they got us.
©Giliell, all rights reserved
We found lots of common earthballs (though I really like the name “pigskin poison puffball”, which would make an amazing name for a band), which are nice to look at, but not good for eating if you value your survival.
©Giliell, all rights reserved
©Giliell, all rights reserved
And I met a frog. I don’t think that they are poisonous.
©Giliell, all rights reserved
This series is nearing slowly its end. Had I had time and strength to post more often, it would probably be already over – the sunflowers are now mostly dead, at least most of the main blossoms are. All that remains are some smaller secondary blossoms that might or might not go to seed, depending on how soon/late the frost comes.
Anyhoo, today two pictures of butterflies who both buggered off before I could take a second picture closer-up, and neither of them obliged to open their wings so I get a good view, let alone a shot off, their upper side.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
I do at least know that this one is a member of the family Satyridae, very probably meadow brown Maniola jurtina, which is a very common species around here. I ain’t no butterflyist, but I do think I got the species correctly.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
This little bugger is also common here, common brimstone Gonepteryx rhamni. It is one of the first butterflies that show up after winter, sometimes even when there is still snow to be found on the north side of buildings and in the forests.
Although when I say these two species are common, it only means that they are still here in numbers big enough to see them. They are rare compared to what used to be here when I was a kid.
Autumn is sneaking in, which means that it will soon be time to say goodbye to the lush colours of the garden. But before we leave for winter, things are still growing.
©Giliell, all rights reserved
There are finally some butternut squash. they’re pretty late, but this is the second one we ate and there’s a couple more. My corn (not pictured) was a mixed success. While the regular sweetcorn was ok (but I only had four stalks), the black popcorn maize put out cobs way too late and didn’t grow tall either. I doubt that it will still ripen and I’m a bit at loss as to why that happened. Can’t be the soil or anything I did, since both varieties were planted next to each other…
I will have way more chilis than anybody can wish for…
©Giliell, all rights reserved
Somebody must have told this one a dirty joke, it’s turning red.
And last but not least: asters. They’re about the last food the bees get in autumn and aren’t they just amazing?
©Giliell, all rights reserved
Guest posts by Ice Swimmer
There is a brackish water fish exhibit on the island Harakka. The fishes, caught from the Gulf of Finland, spend their summer in aquariums and they are released back to the sea in the Autumn. In the Baltic Sea, both freshwater tolerant of some salinity and marine tolerant of low salinity species live next to each other.
The fish pictured here are less typical or well-known in Finnish waters.
In the first picture, a tench can be seen. In Fínnish, it’s called suutari, which means cobbler or shoemaker (but the name may have nothing to do with making shoes, the fish is called sutare in Swedish and shoemaker is skomakare in Swedish). The tenches were rather inactive in the aquarium. The tench is freshwater fish.
A Lazy Tench © Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
There are some pipefishes in the Baltic Sea. The pipefishes are relatives of sea horses. This broadnosed pipefish is one of them. The broadnosed pipefish is called särmäneula (edge needle, neula = needle) in Finnish. The “edges” are lengthwise bony plates under the skin, which make fish look “edgy” according to Finnish Wikipedia. Broadnosed pipefish is a marine species that’s tolerant of brackish water.
Broadnosed Pipefish © Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
In the third picture, we see a round goby. It is an invasive species from the Black Sea Area.
The Round Goby © Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
In the second aquarium post, we shall be playing a game inspired by “Spot the lizard!”.
This is not a common sight. A single male roe deer, grazing near-ish our house in the middle of the day. He seemed quite unperturbed by a few cars passing the road about 100 m from him. And he was so focused on munching grass that he barely ever raised his head above his shoulders, so I mostly got pictures of his ass.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
I do not know the species here and I dare not to identify it. But I do not remember seeing bumblebees with this color regularly here, whereas this year they are almost the only ones I see.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
This is very probably the same individual, it is not like these spiders are very common here. This time she has build a web near the front door to our house and she was there for two days. She has caught one caterpillar but nothing else, so after two days she packed up her ropes and went somewhere else. But on the second day, she was on the web with her back towards the wall and her belly towards me, so I could take a picture. See below the fold.
I had the species identification confirmed by an actual spider scientist.
Pictures of a beautiful garden spider below the fold, video of The Cure above.
Well, maybe don’t watch the video of you are not ok with late Eighties goth getting erotically eaten by a spider.
This one is very green and very hairy. I do love the metallic sheen. It would be lovely if that kind of color could be replicated on a real metal surface, especially if that surface were steel. But it can’t.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
An unusual set of fungi photos from Avalus, full of rich colour and character.
… two crazy fungi. They look more like watercreatures. As one can see with the moss, they also were really tiny.
©Avalus, all rights reserved.
©Avalus, all rights reserved.
©Avalus, all rights reserved.
©Avalus, all rights reserved.
Guest posts by Ice Swimmer
It was a hot afternoon just after Midsummer. I went to downtown Helsinki to take some photos.
In the first photo, you can see a jackdaw walking at the Market Square tram stop. I took the picture while waiting for the tram.
A jackdaw walks by © Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
The second photo is an “aerial photo” of a family of mute swans, two adults,
and five little cygnets. I’m on the shore end of the pier, from which the boat to Harakka picks up passengers.
I think the leftmost cygnet has some Cladophora around the base of the neck, at least I’m hoping it’s that and not plastic (I noticed the green stuff when looking at the edited photo). The green algae, which has a Finnish name ahdinparta, beard (parta) of the old Finnish god of the sea Ahti, is rather ubiquitous in shallow waters here and there’s a lot of it on the underwater stones in the picture.
Swan family dinner. © Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
I took the boat to Harakka. The digitalis was in bloom and there were wild strawberries. It could be that when the Imperial Russian army was using the island before Finnish independence, they planted strawberries and other berries, as I’ve heard stories that it was their way to prevent the soldiers in fortress islands from having scurvy.
Digitalis and strategical strawberries. © Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
This red-leaved rose was growing in a forested area on Harakka. I like how simple and unpretentious it looks.
Red-leaved rose with green leaves. © Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
Most of Harakka is ruled by dinosaurs in the summer. This gull seemed to be above any ergonomic considerations.
Common gull forming an animal puddle. © Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
My visit to Harakka was cut a bit short by the low battery charge level of my phone. I had neglected to take an emergency charger (“sähköpossu”/”electricity piggybank” as I like to call them) with me.
Having come back to the mainland from Harakka, I saw these crows on a sign (warning about the underwater cable AFAIR) on the pier. They were “singing”. There’s a Finnish saying “Äänellään se variskin laulaa.”, which could be translated as: “Even the crow will sing with its own voice.”
Crows singing with their own voices. © Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
I did take more than these pictures on Harakka and there could be material for further posts.