In July 2023, I made a five-day trip to Kilpisjärvi, an arm of Finland, which is a tundra/mountain area of Lapland. I've only been there once before, very briefly, just for a day trip. Not that I didn't want to go there, but only now I managed to lure one of my old friends with me. Aatu Rundgren, whose roots are in Lapland, joined me!
Our goals were to find certain new mammal species for me, and several new bird species for Aatu. He is also interested in mammals, and I'm interested in birds as well, especially rare / scarce arctic birds this time. My ultimate goal was the arctic fox, and the other goal was the norwegian lemming, both species that I had never seen.
Day 1 - 10th of July 2023
And so we drove 14 hours to far north! The trip started early in the morning of 10th of July and we arrived at Kilpisjärvi about at 21:00 in the evening.
During this long drive we saw couple of rough-legged buzzards and one northern hawk-owl, which was a clear indication that vole populations were in good condition.
Our original plan was to stay at Kilpisjärvi Holiday Village & Camping area. But when we arrived there, they told that there was no space for our tent... Damn! July is the busiest time there, lot's of tourists everywhere, all cabins and tent places booked. So, we had to create quickly a plan B. Suddenly I remembered that there is the Kilpisjärvi Biological Station, a sub-arctic research station run by the University of Helsinki. We drove to station and I called to the station manager, who luckily gave us a permission to put up our tent and stay in biological station next two nights! For the last two nights, we had already managed to book a small cabin.
During first evening, we succeeded in finding couple of voles close to our tent, near the shore of the Lake Kilpisjärvi. The first one was a grey-sided vole (Craseomys rufocanus) and the second a northern red-backed vole (Myodes rutilus), both new to my year list 2023.
Day 2 - 11th of July 2023
After the morning swimming in lake Kilpisjärvi and breakfast in Kilpisjärvi Holiday Village, we headed to our first target, the Mount Saana. The easiest way to Saana was to drive to Norway to the coast of Arctic Ocean and then back towards the arm of Finland via small mountain road. While approaching our target, we saw lot's of northern birds, like the european golden plover, golden eagle and rough-legged buzzards. The mountain road was in really bad condition, luckily my Nissan X-trail has a high ground clearance. Some other Finnish tourists were not so lucky with their low ground clearance cars...
The road ended close to the border between Norway and Finland. We continued by hiking up to mountains. The trail was really challenging and we proceeded slow.
The scenery around us was amazing. We were in the middle of nowhere, the only people in this remote wilderness. Up on top of the mountains, we used our binoculars to scan the entire 360-degree landscape around us, looking for an arctic fox. But no, we couldn't find the arctic fox, even though we really tried...
After couple of hours of hiking, we decided to give up and walk back to the parking place. We chose another route, which was easier to walk, but few kilometers longer. This route was a green Lapland mountain moorland, with more birds. There we noticed many holes on the ground, next to stones. Clearly some vole holes, hmmm, could they be norwegian lemming holes?
And yes, that they were! Suddenly I noticed a norwegian lemming
(Lemmus lemmus) peeking from one hole! A lifer! Species #102 in my
global mammal life list!
It was already an evening when we got back to car. While driving back to Kilpisjärvi, we stopped on the coast of the Arctic Ocean and had a refreshing swimming session, water temperature was about 10 degrees Celcius.
Day 3 - 12th of July 2023
In the morning we moved from Biological Station to a cabin that we had rented. When we left the station we saw a big vole coming over the road towards us. It was a tundra vole (Alexandromys oeconomus), a nice addition to my yearlist 2023!
Today we decided to climb to Mount Saana, to look for the norwegian lemming in the Finland. And rock ptarmigan for Aatu. Weather looked great, not much clouds in the sky and refreshing wind.
The scenery was again amazing... but the wind got stronger all the time and finally it blow about 25 m/s. A storm in a sunny day! It was difficult to walk on the top, because of the storm, and there was nothing but tourists, so we decided to hike to calmer side of the Saana. All the birds were now there, but we did not find any rock ptarmigans. Nice surprise was the long-tailed skua, a lifer for Aatu!
On the northern slope of Saana, there was a large grassy moorland area. We noticed again vole holes next to stones. And soon there was again a norwegian lemming peeking from the hole! #64 in my
Finland mammal life list ! We hiked further away from Saana, towards Mount Iso-Jehkas. But no signs of an arctic fox here either. So, rest of the day was spent on birdwatching.
Day 4 - 13th of July 2023
Today our target was the Three-Country Cairn, which is the point at which the international borders of Sweden, Norway and Finland meet, and the name of the monument that marks the point. It is an example of a geographical feature known as a tripoint. It is the northernmost international tripoint in the world. We had planned to hike there, but the weather forecast changed a bit our plan, as a rain-front was approaching from west. So we bought tickets to ship which sailed us to Sweden, only two kilometers away from tripoint.
From Three-Country Cairn we started to hike through Mount Malla nature reserve back to Kilpisjärvi. We saw lots of birds, including white-tailed eagle, pair of rough-legged buzzards in their nesting site, bluethroats and we found also two nests of ring ouzels, again a lifer for Aatu!
In Malla we got the best view and first photos of the norwegian lemming. It was so cute! The rain-front approached us fast so we had to walk bit faster too. We scanned the landscape all the time, in hope of arctic fox, but found nothing... Luckily the rain never reached us and we got back to cabin in time.
Day 5 - 14th of July 2023
Time to drive back to south... Reindeers were every here and there, but for a mammalwatcher it's just another domestic animal. I was hoping the see the Finnish forest reindeer (Rangifer fennicus fennicus) while driving home, but didn't have luck with it this time.
The arctic fox had two breeding pairs in Finland 2023, another pair in Kaldoaivi wilderness area and another somewhere in the arm Finland, where we hiked. I really must come back to Kilpisjärvi - or Kaldoaivi in future. I really want to see that gorgoeus arctic fox some day!
