Today we have photos of Finland from ecologist Susan Harrison of UC Davis. Susan’s captions and IDs are indented and you can enlarge them by clicking on them.
Midsummer in the Åland Islands, Finland
On the tiny Åland Islands in the Baltic Sea, humans observe Midsummer Eve in traditional Swedish style. Towering, vine-decorated maypoles are raised in an hourlong process of pole-pushing and rope-pulling, followed by folk music and dancing.
Midsummer Eve at around 9 pm, Kastelholm, Åland:
Birds, meanwhile, have even more urgent preoccupations than celebrating the summer solstice. Parents are feeding screaming chicks, who jostle for the front of the chow line.
Mute Swans (Cygnus olor) pulling up seaweed for their cygnets:
Great Crested Grebes (Podiceps cristatus) providing transportation and food delivery:
Common Terns (Sterna hirundo), one pair feeding their sole chick fish and insects, while absent adults at the neighboring nest are awaited by two noisy chicks:
Jackdaws (Coloelus modedula), adult and ravenous juvenile:
Barnacle Geese (Branta leucopsis) defending their young against a passing human:
Black Woodpecker (Dendrocopus major), foraging to feed chicks that I didn’t manage to capture in this picture:
These species all have identical or near-identical sexes who share in raising the young, in contrast to the many bird species in which males are flashier and contribute less at the nest than females.
Oooh, I didn’t know about black woodpeckers. Beautiful!
Åland is a lovely place.
Love the baby birds all waiting for parents to provide. To me, it looks like most of them are old enough to go out and find something on their own.