My son Roni and I, arrived to Erä-Eero's Keljänpuro Lodge during afternoon, 23rd of June. After a coffee break, we drove to nearby Uuronlampi pond, where we stayed awake the whole night. In these latitudes the summer nights are luminous, almost as light as days, so it was easy to follow what happened around us.
At 16:32 we heard a rustling noice behind us and suddenly the first wolverine (Gulo gulo) arrived! A lifer for me, number #101 in my global list, and number #63 in my Finland list. Before this, I had seen only the footprints of wolverine in snow, about 10 years ago, in Valkeakoski.
At the closest, this first wolverine was only 1,5 metres away from us! It's a gorgeous animal indeed! While following it's activities I realised also how difficult this species could be to find in forests as the wolverine is a surprisingly low animal and it disappeared several times in the vegetation.
A young brown bear (Ursus arctos), obviously age of 2nd year, arrived after midnight, precisely at 01:00. It was really timid, ran away immediately when the wolverine walked towards it.
We saw at least two wolverines, probably three. They were moving quite a lot around the pond, disappeared and re-appeared every now and then.
In addition to wolverines and brown bear, we saw also couple of more common species, i.e., Eurasian red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris) at the Erä-Eero's Keljänpuro Lodge and European hare (Lepus europaeus) close to our accomodation place in Lieksa downtown.
Big thanks to Erä-Eero for excellent services! We must come back some day, to see the wolves too!
