Ghosts of the Forest

Tuesday was a horrifically early start of 2am in order to get up to Heathrow in time. However the trip up was relatively painless as was the flight to Helsinki. We then had a 7 hour or so wait as the flight in the middle of the day to Kajaani had been cancelled several weeks prior. We wandered around the airport……played the “spot the other photographers” game and generally sat around staring into space. Eventually we boarded our connecting flight and spotted the other photographers. At this point we started to feel rather inadequate with regards to our kit due to the size of everyone else’s backpacks….but nothing we could do about that.
We arrived in Kajaani and piled into a mini bus for the 2 hour drive to the lodge. By this stage it was almost 10pm and still as light as midday. Saw a few moose on the drive. Strange looking creatures they are…all legs and antlers.

The Lodge was very impressive and not just because we arrived around midnight. Comfy beds, the best showers ever and best of all….no mosquitos inside!! Yup cause it’s mosquito season in Finland and going outside was like walking into a swarm of the little blighters. We had bought some all natural repellent before leaving and then panicked at the airport and bought some cans of 100% Deet as well….just in case. However the natural stuff worked a treat (as I knew it would all along!) and I only got bitten once. Of course I swallowed a dozen of the horrid little things but you can’t get a spray for that.

The next day was pretty relaxed to start of with. We went for a walk in the woods with the resident reindeer. Billy is fairly tame and likes his walks. There was no way he was being left behind which was nice since he clearly knew the way better than we did!!
Here’s an interesting point. Did you know that reindeer antlers are warm to touch?? I didn’t.

Right then…on to the important part. We had an early dinner (side note…the food was great) before setting of to the hides at 4pm. This entailed a brief mini bus journey followed by a 2.5km trek through the bear & mosquito infested woods!! Brown bears are timid creatures though and you’ll never see them in the wild unless they want you to or they don’t know your there.

Weather wise it wasn’t the best…cloudy and raining. Good for the bears as they don’t like the heat but it created very low light conditions for photography.
The hides (there were two) were quite comfy with car seats (cause they recline) set up near the viewing positions. Once we were all settled in our places we were locked in for the night. We had a guide stay with us to provide information and cups of tea, there were bunk beds for those who couldn’t stay up all night and a chemical loo!!

The bears failed to show at 6pm which was the expected time however they turned up by 7pm and the sound of hard working cameras filled the air. I’m surprised the bears didn’t turn tail and run and I’m sure they heard the camera but they must have got used to it over time as they really didn’t seem to care. Possibly the mounds of salmon was distracting them!

It rained on and off over the night but that only seemed to encourage the bears. They came and went at will right up until about 3 or 4am when the action tapered off. Although the sun never actually set below the horizon it did get a little too dark between 11pm and 2am for my camera/lens set up and so I managed a few hours sleep in my reclining car seat.

The second night was the same deal…early dinner and then the drive and walk to the hides. It had been raining on and off all day BUT started to fine up as we were walking through the woods and we ended up with sun and blue sky. A few clouds remained but they only served to highlight the colours of the sunset and sunrise. The trees did a pretty good job of that also turning a fiery red for much of the evening.
This time the bears were in much better form and almost from the moment we arrived they were there. I was so busy taking pictures of a lesser spotted woodpecker that I never even noticed the bears to start off with!
They call them the Ghosts of the Forest because you never hear them coming for all their size and weight. And they are right. There were about 16 bears in the area and we never knew where they would appear next. They just floated in and out of the clearing at will.

Four of the bears were large males and none of them with a decisive advantage over the others. So we didn’t see any of this year’s cubs as the mothers would have been very wary of all the males. The oldest bear we saw was late 30’s and the youngest a yearling.
There were a couple of fights and squabbles, some power plays and some bonding, a number of half hearted attempts at mating, loads of back rubbing and scratching, quite a few chases (bears move very, very quick and sound like thunder when they run) and a huge amount of chewing with mouths open (bears have no table manners).

The first night we were woken to the sounds of threatening growls and grunts. Looking outside we saw one very aggressive male chasing off all the others. The second night we woke up to the sounds of frantic scrabbling and saw a yearling shooting up a tree at the speed of light. It went up and down several times before deciding to make a break for it and tearing off into the undergrowth. The bears it considered threatening barely looked up from their salmon!

I was amazed at how soft and fluffy they looked and really wanted to go out and just sink my hands into their coats. I didn’t…..but I wanted to! Their social interplay was fascinating to watch as bears are usually much more solitary and don’t gather in groups such as this. You could clearly see that some bears didn’t like other bears and some were friends or old buddies. You could see those at the top of the hierarchy and how the other reacted.
Seeing that first bear was an amazing moment. It was hard to believe we were really seeing bears in the wild! I feel incredibly privileged to have seen them and I can’t help but think if more folk saw animals like this in their natural environment, just doing their thing….then we wouldn’t have to worry about animals becoming endangered.
One of the shortest trips we’ve done…..but one of the best.

I learnt quite a lot on this trip despite how short it was. I learnt heaps about low light photography but I also learnt that I’m too old to be staying up all night and that changing your sleeping patterns for just two nights is enough to make it a real struggle to change them back again! Also I confirmed that BA is the worst airline I’ve ever travelled on but that’s another topic altogether! (nuff said about the flight home huh!!)

I’ll try to put more photos up as I find time but it is a lengthy process and we have upwards of 500-600 to work through so please be patient. I’m so, so glad we managed to do this trip (although disappointed it’s already over!) It was so worth the lack of sleep and long travel hours to be able to spend time with these gorgeous animals. We had an amazing time and I hope that, despite our lack of ‘kit’ the photos reflect that.
Since I'm having some trouble with photos and layout here you can see the photos if you click HERE!