Today, Liam and I joined a
guided walk organised by STF -- the Swedish Tourist Association.
We've been members for years, but this was actually the first
time ever we have been sufficiently organised to join in one of
their activities! Until now, we have only stayed in their youth
hostels.
The walk was to see winter birds around Stensjön, a local lake, and was to start from a nearby car park. As soon as we found the correct one, we could see that the clientele was mostly mature, shall we say. I must have been the second youngest there, after Liam! But still, who cares about that? Everybody doted on Liam, which he was not slow to appreciate!
We started off by walking down beside a rushing river between a scrap-yard and a factory, which soon led us into a patch of flooded forest. We were looking for something called a `stream starling´ which lives close to rushing water, and dives into it to catch its food. But today, the starling did not deign to honour us with his presence! It seems they like to jump off rocks into the water, and since it's been raining heavily, all the rocks were under water today. So the starlings simply took a day off!
Still, not to be discouraged, our guide spotted a blue-tit in the distance and began to tell us about their habits. Liam and I had taken binoculars with us, as instructed -- I have a miniature pair which Liam borrowed, while I used my big pair. Liam loved using them, but he could not spot that blue-tit, and instead punctuated the guide's narration with excited comments such as `Do you know what I can see through my binoculars? I can see a yellow sign!´
Mind you, I hardly impressed with my knowledge, either. Me: `Liam, do you see that rabbit?´ Guide: `Now, who can tell me if that was a field hare or a forest hare?´ Oh well, the less you know, the more you can learn, that's my motto!
After giving up on the stream starlings we walked up the river to the lake. And there, we saw plenty of birds! Liam found them in his binoculars this time, and stared in fascination. After a while he began asking me meaningfully who these little baby binoculars really belonged to... Our guide explained to us how to tell black-backed gulls from herring gulls, and bemoaned the fact that most people just call them seagulls -- despite the fact that there were actually no seagulls present! On the far side of the lake, he even picked out a pair of buzzards sailing above the trees, and explained how to tell them apart from hawks.
Further around the lake we came to a little beach where hordes of swans, mallards, and Canada geese were gathered. We hardly needed our binoculars to see them, but using them we could study the warts on their knees, for example!
Here we paused to feed the birds. We had
brought a stale half loaf with us, which Liam proceeded to rip up
and cast to the hordes. To his delight he even hit one mallard on
the head with a particularly large crumb! He was vastly
entertained to see all the ducks racing for the same one!
Suddenly two swans raced across the beach, squeaking and squawking, virtually in the air, and a huge commotion broke out. Our guide explained that they were parents defending a young swan against another male, which of course we had completely missed. So it was very interesting hearing the things around us interpreted.
Finally we made yet another abortive attempt to find stream starlings, before giving up and settling down to eat our sandwiches at the end of the organised walk.
It was a slightly strange feeling to go an an organised walk, but we enjoyed it -- it got us out of the house for some fresh air on a rather gray morning, and we did see and learn things we would not have done otherwise. Liam had a great time, and he said the best thing about it was the surprise: he was surprised that it was actually so much fun, when at the beginning he had failed to find the blue-tit and the whole thing had seemed extremely boring!
