Day 17: Riding around Rävgången

Looking towards Hjälmaren

The sun wasn’t actually shining bright in the morning, but neither was the rain coming down heavily.  So Maggie and me went for a bit of a ride to Rävgången.  This is the nature reserve just across the road from the apartment.  It is part of the very large lake of Hjälmaren (a lake that stretches east towards to Stockholm and is linked to the coast at Stockholm by a series of locks – a distance of probably +200 kms of waterways).  There is also a wetland – Oset – on the edge which is also part of the nature reserve.  

My best photo of a tofsvipa

 The gravely path was pretty damp and added to the dirt that Maggie was carrying around from Finland.  I stopped in at the bird hide and checked around the wetlands for signs of bird life.  There were the usual seagulls, crows and terns.  I did see a reed warbler fly up – warbling away – and then drop back down into the long grass, but too far away to have a good view.  There were cute tofsvipa – or lapwings, with their cute little swept-back crest! 

Escaping flock of Canadian Geese

I rode around the lake checking out the geese and ducks and got hissed at by a rather large and irate swan who was guarding his wife and 3 fluffy grey cygnets.  I feel really at home there now, having spent a fair bit of time riding around this reserve in 2010. 

Cranky swan ahead:  get your motor running!

Then up over the bridge to Oset, but didn’t see or hear any beavers in the river.  Then onto the picnic area near Svartan’s mouth and back over to the little house where the naturalist used to live.  

Cottage - Erik Rosenberg, Naturalist

Can’t remember his name, but he was the one that did quite a bit of research into wetlands and was instrumental in getting this area declared a natural reserve. 

looking out to the mouth of Svartan

The young birds were all nearly full fledged now and were getting stuck into feeding themselves, preparing for a rather large flight later in autumn for their return to Africa away from the cold winter weather here.   So there was a lot of activity happening in amongst the long reeds.

Maggie agrees - not a good day for a picnic

To add a bit of diversity to the whole scene, there was a herd of Scottish highland cattle keeping the grass down.  Their shaggy coats, long fringes and very impressive handle-bar horns make them look pretty cute, but apparently they can be a bit cranky.  They plunge around in the numerous water-holes, eating the rank grass and looking rather contented.

Shaggy Highland cattle

I had forgotten my purse so didn’t try and find The Best Bread Shop in Sweden – next time maybe.

Agnete and I caught the bus into the centre and did some clothes shopping and had a look around the centre.  We found some cute clothes for a little girl I know and we did check out the Red Cross but no Baby Roo there.  I even found a cardigan that was something I really needed as summer here is not that warm!

Later in the day, Agnete and I went for a walk around the new housing development that has happened in the past 2 years.  There are some Swedish looking apartments, but there are some ugly grey ones that Anders’ has nicknamed “The Porridge Blocks” and the colour does remind one of cold grey porridge…  but apparently they are quite expensive - which is the way things are these days.

The Porridge Block

Proper Swedish apartments - note plants on the roof

Storm clouds gathering, time to go home

The storm clouds were gathering and thunder was predicted, so we strolled back home again, just beating another rather heavy downpour.  The farmers here are not that happy at the moment as there are swampy yellow grain crops where there should be strong green crops.