We arrived after midnight on the ferry from Finland, and immediately started looking for somewhere to park for the night. We ended up in a paddock on the edge of town, probably an area being prepared for housing developement. The moment the engine was turned off Jirka heard a bird call. It was "his bird", a corncrake which he has been researching for the last three years. The bird is protected and he has been using satellite tracking devices to track its migration into Northern Africa. And here it was in our camping spot, in Estonia.
By morning Jirka had heard a number of different males calling. In addition he had seen no less than 6 protected species in this meadow. He told us that he has organised a conference about the corncrakes to take place in October. Among those invited is a biologist from Estonia.
Next morning we headed into Tallinn, Estonia's capital. Here we found the city square and a market, with the stall holders dressed in medieval costume.
The medieval theme continued around the city with children riding"horses" and wearing tin- bucket helmets, and jesters and horse carts. It was very quaint, and merry.
Another feature of the city centre was these Eco-Taksis. They were electric with pedal assistance so could be managed by quite slight persons.
Then it was off to the Lahemaa national park in northern Estonia. A major feature of this park is a large area of bog lands. This is an area where the moss has built up on top of itself without decaying, until it is meters deep. The land us very spongy and watery. It is quite dangerous, with the real possibility of sinking into it. In fact during the war a whole military tank is said to have sunk and disappeared here!
There was a boardwalk into the bog area, where we saw very interesting plants and landscape.
These bog holes have very dark acid water, but this didn't deter the youth of the area swimming. There was one hole designated for swimming and we saw streams of young people heading into the park with swimming gear.
Other images of Estonia...
No comments:
Post a Comment