Porkkalanniemi and Porkkala National Park

On Monday, I rented a car and drove out to Porkkalanniemi which is a peninsula in the Gulf of Finland about 25 miles west of Helsinki. There is a Finnish naval base on the peninsula and at various times it had a coastal artillery unit. Between 1944 and 1956 it was under the control of Russia and they had a large naval base on the peninsula. Now it’s a popular spot for bird watchers since many arctic species will stop here on their way north. On the drive over I saw a white tail deer. They are not considered native to Finland and it is thought that the deer can be traced back to animals imported from the USA in 1934. I also saw several cranes so I had to stop for a photo op.

The trails in the park were reminiscent of those found on Isle Royale National Park in Lake Superior. Both have long stretched of bare rock, rocky shorelines, and heavily forested areas. At the tip of the peninsula I found a group of five bird watchers who were using their spotting scopes in the hopes of seeing migrating arctic birds. They indicated that it had been a slow day and that peak migration had occurred a few weeks earlier. There were the occasional swans, Canadian geese, Barnacle geese and long tailed ducks. By far the most common bird were eider ducks. They are exclusively found at sea and they have a distinctive greenish coloration to their necks.

 

These lower resolution jpeg images don’t do them justice. Another active set of birds were the arctic and common terns. The common tern has a red beak with a black tip – while the arctic tern’s beak is red throughout. The terns would float in the air while fishing and then crash into the water in search of fish and other prey. They are also aggressive, indeed I was dive bombed by arctic terns last year when I was in Iceland. They chase the sunlight and migrate between the arctic and Antarctica. It’s an amazing 25,000 mile migration.

While hiking in the forest I came across a number of bees that were collecting pollen.

In addition, I nearly stepped on an Eurasian adder which is the only venomous snake in Finland. There are two other species of snakes and two lizard species (one of which I saw but I was too slow to capture a photo). No turtles here in Finland (Helsinki and Anchorage have similar latitudes). Seeing a snake in the wild can always cause this primal visceral reaction. The adder is relatively docile as snakes go which is a good thing since its venom is about three times more potent that an Eastern diamondback rattlesnakes and about 20 times more potent than the Southern copperhead.

Till next time…