NATURE IN AWE AND IN THE RAW
He was lost, completely lost. A tiny Pallas's warbler, just over three inches from the tip of his bill to the end of his tail, had been blown hundreds of miles off course. Hungry and exhausted, he had fluttered down to the Baltic island of Öland, when he should have been somewhere between his breeding grounds in Siberia and winter quarters in southern China.The warbler had touched down at Ottenby nature reserve, an ornithological Eldorado on the island in southern Sweden, on a day when scores of birdwatchers were out. Every autumn,
a Pallas's Warbler
(picture courtesy of Daniel Pettersson)
Ottenby has a bird observatory, a gaunt, grey lighthouse, and a cluster of trees - inviting greenery which attracts tired migrants to refuel after crossing the watery wastes of the Baltic.
As it flitted from branch to branch, high up among the foliage, someone spotted the warbler - a rare visitor, approaching mega-star status and a potential "lifer" for most of the list-keeping birders in our group from Cheshire and Manchester. A frenetic scramble to see the bird - named after the German ornithologist who first identified it, two centuries ago - did none of us any credit.
Eventually it was captured in a trap by the observatory staff and paraded triumphantly in front of us. Two hundred birders, armed with an arsenal of binoculars, telescopes, tripods, cameras, camcorders and pagers, lined up to see the mite.
Yellow crown stripe and eyestripe, double yellow wingbar and yellow rump...he was stunningly beautiful. But I felt twinges of regret to see it flapping its wings, trying to escape from the hand of one of its captors. A tiny white spot of poop appeared on his thumb. And was it really necessary to fit the frightened creature with a lightweight ring on one leg - a device to try to track its movements when it was eventually recaptured or found dead? Greg McIvor, our British guide happily exiled to Sweden, reckoned it would never see Siberia again, let alone China.
a Long Eared Owl
In contrast, a 14-inch tall long-eared owl, also caught by the observatory staff, looked strong and well able to bear its burden of a ring. Greg is one of those ornithological geniuses who can name virtually every bird by its call or behaviour.
He picked out huge flocks of migrating geese and thousands of eider ducks over the sea, together with long-tailed ducks, scoters and divers. Overhead were chaffinches, bramblings, white wagtails, fieldfares, redpolls and twite. Hundreds of goldcrests had just flown in; some landed on our tripods and even one on Brian Grieve's head, not doing his new hat any favours!
Most astonishing of all was the drama of a massive white-tailed eagle attacking a cormorant. The raptor hovered over its victim, near the shore, and then dropped on to the cormorant, apparently holding its head under the water with its talons until the poor crearure drowned. Then we watched the victor tear flesh from the vanquished. Lunch was served... nature in the raw!
Öland is 87 miles long by 10 miles wide, reached by a four-mile bridge from the Swedish mainland, There's much more to it than birdlife. Four hundred redundant wooden windmills line the road sides in small groups, their sails lifeless; in contrast, the whirling white blades of clusters of experimental wind turbines, some off-shore, spoil the island's old-worldliness.
There are pleasant woodland walks among deciduous trees; when we were there, on a sunny day, the oaks and birches were a mosaic of browns, russets, light and shade. Standing stones from the Stone Age, Iron Age forts and enigmatic ancient cemetaries attract the archaeologist.
Among Öland's historic and diverse landscapes is an unusual, treeless limestone plain, of fascinating interest to botanists. Its spring flower glories include 30 different kinds of wild orchid.
Orchids! Must go back in the spring!