Dipped out on a Walrus - a cosmic mind-f*cker in Finland!

Walrus in Hamina, photo credits go to Christa Granroth

A Walrus (Odobenus rosmarus) was found in Hamina, Finland on 14th of July. Possibly it had arrived there already during last week, according to local residents. For mammalwatchers in Finland, it's a real cosmic mind-f*cker! 

A cosmic mind-f*cker? What?? Well, here's a brief glossary:

A tick. The ultimate aim of twitching mammals. Quite literally the tick you put alongside the name of mammal species when you see it.

A lifer. Much the same as tick. An alternative term, meaning the first time in your life you have seen a certain species, so it follows it must be a tick.

A megatick. A very good tick. A species that has occurred only few times in certain area, like the country where you live.

A cosmic mind-f*cker. A very good megatick! Most probably a species never recorded in  in certain area, and most appropriate to something that is not only very rare but looks fabulous too. Something really good looking and handsome, say a Garden Dormouse or really big, like a European Bison, would justify such naughty language!

A first. Quite specifically, a "first for my country". Not just the first time you've seen it, but the first time anybody has seen it in your country. So if a mammalwatcher sees a first, he or she is in for a megatick, and possibly.... a cosmic mind-f*cker.

Dip out. To fail to see the mammal you wanted to see.

And the Walrus in question, was not only the first for Finland, but also a really handsome and really big i.e., a real cosmic mind-f*cker! The Finnish mammalwatchers got the first information about it on the 15th of July, but only very few of them managed to see it on Friday evening. During Saturday morning, lot's of mammalwatchers headed to Hamina, including me and my son Roni. Hamina is quite far from where we live, the driving time was 2 hours and 45 minutes. We arrived to "game field" in time, or so we thought, as the Walrus was still there, not in the beach where it had spent the night, but few hundred meters down stream towards the sea. At that point we made a wrong decision, we started to walk along the shore towards the sea. When we arrived to point of cape, there was a group of other mammalwatchers and they told us that Walrus was right here, 15 minutes ago, but it disappeared when a motor boat arrived. So, if we had not walked, but chosen to drive by car, we had managed to see it... 

So.. we dipped out on a Walrus - a cosmic mind-f*cker. It never came back, we were searching for it about 10 hours, until midnight. The twitching of Walrus turned to sheer heartbreak. 😞

Now we can only hope it will be found from somewhere else on our sea shore. Otherwise, I must travel to Svalbard.

UPDATE 17.7. at 16:42

The Walrus has swam in to the fishermens fyke net, in Suulisniemi, Kotka, about 15 km southwest from yesterday. The Coast Guard is trying to get the Walrus out of fyke net, but they both are underwater...

UPDATE 17.7. at 17:14

Good news: the Coast Guard got the Walrus out of fyke net and it disappeared out to the sea.
Bad news: No idea where it is...

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Writer

Olli Haukkovaara
Valkeakoski
Finland