Grouse

It's becoming more difficult to tell which day it is which even though we are still in the early days of the trip.  We have left the Finlandia Airport Hotel and are now staying at the Hotel Club Kuusamon Tropikki near Kuusamo.  This is very nice and new resort-style hotel.   It has a golf course, a couple of lakes and indoor pool as well as kids things.  The dining room was large and the buffet meals were excellent.  

Side note:  I have noticed on other trips that involve time-zone changes that the events I have in my smart phone calendar also change to the current time-zone.  Everything on our phones is synced to the satellites monitoring our presence and keeping time for us.  To me, this seems like a failure of smart phones, but it's not just smart phones.  It was also true for my camera.  When I downloaded my photos none of the times recorded for each photo are accurate.  I had never noticed this before.  Early on I had to sit down and go through my camera menu to find a solution for a problem that had arisen.  I think everyone knows what a pain this is.  I intentionally do not have my camera synced with my smart phone.  But somewhere along the way I have a feature turned on that probably should not be.  Now that I am home, something to solve later.

All this past winter I noticed that my Belle Isle photos frequently downloaded out-of-order to my computer.  I didn't bother paying attention to it then.  But, now that I am writing this blog and trying to follow chronologically I am having trouble remembering what came first.  The time stamp on each photo is of no help to me and I may not be able to trust the dates either.  I changed sim cards half way through the trip to avoid any catastrophic mishaps.  It's time to consult the trustworthy trip checklist.

Back to the trip:  It was near Kuusamo that we began our grouse searches.

Willow Ptarmigan.  

I have unidentifiable photos of the female Willow Ptarmigan (Lagopus lagopus) as well but not worth including here.  We saw the bird in this plumage only in this location.  We saw it many times in its tundra habitat with its red-brown head and neck and the rest of the plumage completely white.  This Willow Ptarmigan was seen on the morning of 5/26 when we were on a search for Western Capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus).  After about an hour we gave up this search and were loading back into the vans when a big male Capercaillie flew across the road about fifty feet in front of our parked vans.  Only a few of us saw it.       

The following five photos were taken on an after dinner grouse search the evening of Tuesday, the 27th - our final night in this location.  We left around 9:00 pm and drove several unpaved rural road.  We did indeed find grouse.   

But first we saw Mountain Hare.  This is a big and charming rabbit which we saw every day, everywhere.

Above and below:  Finally, a Black Grouse landed in a field just adjacent to our vehicles,  It startled and  flew up to the spuce tree for a silhouetted image.  Both photos were taken through filthy van windows.

And then grouse seemed to show up everywhere along the road.  We saw both female black grouse and female Western Capercaillies.

 

Above:  Believe it or not, this is a female Capercaillie.

Startled male Black Grouse flying off.

Our final male Black Grouse landed in a field just ahead of our cars.  We opened the van door in hopes of getting unobstructed views.  But, the van in front of us startled it when its door was opened and I caught this horrible inflight photo.   Can still tell what it is.

The next morning, in a different location, we saw Black Grouse distantly on their lek. 

Finally, you'll remember Bernard Raynaud of Red-flanked Bluetail fame.  It seems fitting to end this post with his email sign-off image of the male Western Capercaillie in its classic pose.

Wow!