Leaving the Swedish mountains

There is a sense of foreboding. Time is wrapping up here in the Swedish mountains. My project fieldwork is done as most of the nests have hatched, and the chicks are running around the valleys. It was a physically difficult 5 weeks. And it wasn’t that successful. I didn’t find as many nests as I had hoped, as the density is much lower here in the rugged alpine, than the tundra from which I based my estimates on. So, I’m left with data that may not be useful, 5 weeks of somewhat isolation that I don’t remember too much about. Soon, I’ll be travelling back down to Lund and then on to Canada. Much has happened in the 10 months that I’ve been in Sweden so far, to hard to conceptualize. I have that satisfactory feeling of a life lived, bloated and pushing back the memories of arrival back into another lifetime. Was it really only 10 months?

And how will these 5 weeks here fit in to my story? Not much to say.

Snowed in

My german company sets a hard pace, thick calves running up the steep spring streams in the lower birch forests. Even here there is snow. Higher and higher we go and it becomes more obvious that nature has done a reboot. A two day storm has blanketed the mountains in snow and in silence. Such a transition when three days earlier I had baked in the heat, cursed the sunburn that blistered lips. Then, the green had just hit the dwarf shrubs and the air was full of maddly displaying shorebirds, the birds who, as their name suggests, normally populate the shores of oceans and wetlands far to south. In the summer, they make spectacular migrations to the north to nest in the giant continental wetland that is tundra, and its similar sister ecosystems in alpine valleys. We had already found about 10 nests.

Another 500m onwards and we're on an icefield. A few passerines, and a lonely golden plover makes distress calls in the distance. A futile effort, as its nest is surely lost: 30cm deep in snow, in the cold, parents must make a choice between their current nest and survival to future breeding efforts. Everyone else has abandoned. Perhaps this one has lost its mate, and waits at the only obvious rendezvous point.

I don't want to think how many more days of optimal weather we must wait for until all this snow is gone. Then how many more days until the birds can re-lay eggs? It will be a late season this year. I just have under 4 weeks left, researching nesting patterns of the Dunlin. All previous efforts to waste. Re-searching indeed. And so it goes.

Bleeding chicks and transitions

I had a great day today. How is this for quality education: my department rents us a car (environmental car, of course), to drive out to an old research grove in the middle of a military training area, where old Jackdaw nestboxes host a small colony of crows. We rob the nests, measure the chicks, and bleed them for an anti-body study. Like vets or something, drawing blood from pink little monsters. Can't quite describe why, but its really cool, and totally unheard of in Canada to let loose a couple students like us to handle chicks in such an invasive way.

I've done it before in Alaska, but more experience is always good. I guess? I don't really know what this will all lead to. But I feel good doing it. How many students can say that and mean it? How many professionals?

So, the pace of school is slow and cool as June approaches. Its already so bright here. Soon, I will kiss the stars and night goodbye as I head up to northern northern swedish moutains for 5 weeks over the solstice. Until then, I don't know what was the climax, but things are unraveling. Everytime I meet someone familiar, it could be for the last time. Few of my friends now will be back in sweden in the fall when I return. I don't know where I will live, and have the choice of three cities... slowly saying goodbye to a great ten months. I had good friends, a good corridor, good education, fun distractions. Sad to see it go. But that is my life: go, go, go!! I don't plan on stopping any time soon, but at 25, I'm aware of some ancient genetic programming thats nagging me to settle down; that its only in this frivolous modernity that one can be thrown so much strange shit and think its normal.

Go! God is a verb.

Birds and Baseball Bastard

We can't loss, so why not play relaxed?

Some birds during my Ornithology course at Lund, and the traditional swedish sport called bränboll, spring 2008

Den sista Bränboll spel

The last burnball game.

At first, you don't think its true, you must of heard wrong, a mistranslation from swedish to english. But its true: for the last two weeks, every day, from five to eight thirty, my student housing building, called the Paratheses, has been playing in a self organized tournament of "burnball", a bastardized version of baseball, each student corridor against the other, obligatory and highly competitive.

People take it serious (and for a good reason...) For the last month, everyday, people have been practising out in the middle ground of the "Parathesis", training their batting arms, catching one handed, and throwing.

My corridor's bats were stolen... sabatoge! A dirty trick in a dirty student tournament. A serious dirty tournament, for at the end of the two weeks, the two losing teams from each division (remember the American League and National Leagues?) play each amidst a hailstorm of week-saved garbage being thrown in inebriated volleys from the balconies of the other non-loser corridors. Trash, old tv's, stinky containters, fish eggs, rotting fermented herring. You name it, they throw. And the grand losers, have to clean it all up in the end.

Then they erect a giant beer tent, and the modest student residence of 300 grows to thousand for the legendary Bränboll fest.

We play under the threat of punishment. My corridor, mostly inert swedish girls, almost lost last year. This year, we managed to avoid being in the final losers game by an opponent team to lose on purpose, with baked cakes, punch and waterpipe.

Our team is called "Kärlek utan granser" ("Love without limits"). Other floors called themselves "Love hurts" "We eat blackeyes for breakfest" "Love for a price" and "Fuck Love, we just want to fuck."

So, lets recap just how rediculous this whole concept is: the tournament is a long tradition, completely self-organized, obligatory, and the whole point is to just avoid losing and thus cleaning up the damn dumpster. Unheard of in more civilized countries like Canada.

We play our final game in a couple minutes: non-serious, enjoyable goofy game as we're under no duress of losing. I'll have a beer in my hand and rubber boots, as the field has become mud after two weeks nonstop play.

Peace,
Rob

Öland roadtrip

Öland is a long narrow island on the Swedish east coast. It’s a last stop for many birds before they leap frog to continental Europe. So, I went on another roadtrip, as a friend wanted to visit her family in nearby historical Kalmar and on the island. The birds weren’t so interesting, as the migration hasn’t started yet, and it was windy and wet. However, I’d like to think that my nerdy and proud love of spotting scopes and the outdoors brought an unexpected joy to my friends, and participated in their self-described rebirth into a healthy lifestyle. i.e., no more cigarettes, sugar and other evils, and hello to almonds and hiking!

Watching seals, climbing lighthouses, mischevious witches and their abodes. We stopped at ruins, old borgs and castles, and large erected rocks in the shape of the phallus (many in Sweden, actually) Öland had plenty to offer our eclectic touring troupe.  Mixed with a some partying, great companions, it was the best trip so far.

 But that’s it for traveling for a while. Time to sublimate mojo and fun into my studies. Kittiwakes and shorebirds from now on.

I should actually congratulate myself in finding the fun in the more “mundane” Sweden. Other Canadian students are flying to the Alps, London, etc., not really enjoying Sweden itself. In fact, I don’t know why many foreigners are here, living a strange apartheid between foreingers and Swedes. Consider this one Spanish girl in who exclaimed in surprise: “You’re Canadian? But… but.. you were talking to the Swedish people!”

Öland roadtrip

View from the Ottenby lighthouse


Early March roadtrip from Lund to Öland, a small island on the east coast