This last week, Sarah and I have spent at the small village of Drevdagen, in the highlands near the Norwegian border.

The upland taiga of Sweden is so beautiful – wild and desolate, yet delicate and ephemeral.

Woodlands of confers and birch form stands on the higher, more well-drained, rocky areas. These mature trees are many hundreds of years of age, their slow growth rate a response to cold climate and poor soils. Moraine boulders deposited during the last ice age lie here and there between the trees.

Between these woodland swathes are expanses of lowland peat bogs. They look easy and convenient just to walk across, but we soon realised these open glades to be completely waterlogged and sodden underfoot. Their surface is covered in a thick carpet of spongy mosses, lichens and prostrate plants, a micro-garden of fascinating colours, forms and textures. Negotiating these areas was like walking across a wet mattress.

Punctuating and winding through this landscape are broad lakes and streams, where we saw beavers swimming slowly in the early morning, and moose feeding among inundated grassbeds.

For much of the week, we have had rain and a cold wind blowing off the Norwegian highlands. However we’ve been privileged with a few still mornings, when we’ve been able to record a mixture of passerines (Redstarts, Spotted Flycatchers, Tree Pipits, Bramblings, Willow Warblers…) and waterbirds (Greenshank, Curlews, Ducks, Swans…).

This recording features a Redstart, often one of the first birds to begin calling in the early dawn twilight. On this occasion, a freezing wind was sighing through the conifers, while the Redstart gave its pleasant song from a high perch. Small groups of Siskins can be heard occasionally, calling as they fly overhead.

As an interesting inter-species comparison, we recorded a Black Redstart in Turkey, and it’s song features on our recording from Demerkazik Gorge, which we’ve posted in an earlier blog. The unusual ‘hissing’ sound that often precedes the Black Redstart’s song is absent from the European Redstart, but the pleasant, rippling quality of song they both have in common.

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We are staying in a cottage that backs onto a long distance wilderness walking track that meanders its way through Sweden’s national parks and forests. We were rained in the first three mornings, but today I was up at 2am, and made my way along the track.

Forest in Drevdagen

You can imagine my childlike delight and joy to discover the landscape was inhabited by these creatures. I have no idea how they got there – but some imaginative and creative people have definitely had some fun. I don’t mind not knowing – I love the playful mystery of it all! Needless to say, I got totally distracted and spent the morning in search of tiny doorways, houses, ladders, watchful rocks and kept my eyes open for the occasional Gnome sighting – I hope you enjoy my playful and slightly silly photo blog.

Woodland Gnome

Off for his daily constitutional

Ever watchful for Snotgurglers

Fairy Tree

Ladybug

Beaver Rock

Forest Sprites

Scary monsters, supercreeps!

Oh no… captured by the Snotgurglers!

The moss man

Shy Sprite

Lovely Sprite

A Gnome at Home!

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Driving out of Stockholm, our first impression of Sweden was of a landscape that seemed like a never-ending golf course.

That doesn’t sound very appreciative, does it? It is probably inspired by the mixture of woodlands and grassy fields, and the sense of a landscape tended with care for generations. Add in the quaint farmhouses with traditional red-stain wood buildings, and a proliferation of beautiful lakes, and Sweden is a very picturesque country.

After arriving here utterly exhausted from the Turkey leg of our field trip, we took a few days to recover, staying with our dear friends, Colin and Jackie. They’re an English couple who have recently retired to the town of Avesta, about 100km northwest of Stockholm.

I’ve known Colin for over 30 years, but this is the first time we’ve visited them in their new Swedish home. It came as a pleasant surprise to realise that they live in Dalarna, the Swedish Dales district, a gently undulating landscape of farmlands and woodlands. So we have been enjoying their hospitality and using their home as a base to explore the surrounding lakes and woodlands.

We’re here at the right time – spring is happening with great rapidity. Each day the foliage on the trees is noticeably denser than it was, and the deciduous woodlands are a vibrant green the likes of which we don’t see at home.

The birds are singing strongly too, but in that there is a small problem – they’re just not keeping decent hours.

Being nearly midsummer, and at this latitude, we are getting nearly 24 hours of daylight. Even at midnight it is not really dark, with a twilight of green-blue glowing across the northern horizon.

So after a brief quiescence, the birds are beginning their day around 2am. For us to get into the forests to record them in time, we are having to wake up around 12.30am, after trying to get to sleep around 6pm. Not only is this ruining our social life, we are feeling like we have permanent jetlag.

But its worth it, the dawn birdsong is rich and extended. This recording comes from our first morning out, and was made in mature Birch woodlands on the edge of a lake.

Update: We’ve now released an album recorded later in the morning at this location, entitled ‘Birch Wood‘.

Here’s a sample. The album is available for digital download from our website.

‘Birch Wood’ – album sample by Listening Earth

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