I've had a fairly successful week birding. Yesterday I went to Hailuoto. I did not join the twitchers wanting to spot the first Finnish American plover (amerikankurmitsa) which had stopped by, but was after laulujoutsen, the whooper swans. I was not quite sure where to go luckily there were enough flying around to guide me to some fields where a few (maybe a hundred) were resting.
Yet again, seeing a huge flock of flying birds was incredible. Especially as they are so shy and secretive when breeding, and now just gather and let humans come relatively close before taking objection.
I know I keep including shots of this view, but it is one of my favourite places on the planet. It felt bleak and barren, and in the distance were a few ducks and swans, but not much else. The swans were walking on ice, about 200m from the tower (the picture below was taken with my very budget telescopic zoom).
I had hope for a few crisp autumn blue skies but it has been cloudy, and hovering just above zero all week so remained quite damp. This hasn't made for good photography, but has been much better for driving.
I'm going mad with frustration over the sale of my flat in the UK. Having bought a place here and moved in within a month, it's really unbelievable that my flat has been empty with a buyer eager to move in since the start of September. But we are both at the beck and call of solicitors who seem to do absolutely nothing and get paid extortionate amounts for the privilege. I want to get a car as soon as I can, and need the money released for it. However at this rate it will be 2011 before that happens. Everyone keeps asking here why solicitors are involved in house sales in the UK. A bloody good question, as they seem to do absolutely nothing but without them the process cannot happen.

I am very glad to have reached the autumn break. I was thinking how quickly I have become acclimatised to a lighter workload, and how eagerly I counted down to this holiday. In the UK I would be twice as exhausted and irritable with my classes, and have had at least two days off sick in order to pace myself to get to the end of the shorter half-term. It's all relative, I guess. And still I believe nothing would ever entice me back there, even if I am currently hating getting out of the house for the 7am bus in the dark and drear of sleet and knowing it'll get worse.
However after sleet, we get snow and then suddenly the world is several magnitudes brighter. The view from the upstairs balcony is probably going to stay the same for 6 months (except whiter, and then in spring bluer skies) - just as well I like it! I have rearranged the furniture out there and found that birds can get through the cat netting so I hope to put seeds out for them without encouraging the squirrels which will upset the neighbours.
I am also cat-sitting again for three lovely tidy girls nearby. Their humans have found me a car to use while they are away so I have had my first drives on winter tyres. Thankfully the roads have just been wet, not icy as I still dread that induction. Especially as the car is an old (yes, old - possibly just at the takeover by VW) Skoda. Admittedly it put a smile on my face as without power steering and ABS it actually feels like proper driving again. So, fingers and paws are crossed here for warmish clearer weather so I can be brave enough to take a few trips out of Oulu.

I was really pleased to spot my first waxwings (tilhi) of the season on the way back from work yesterday. Last year it took me ages to find any, and I got no decent pictures so I am on a mission this time. Today I was out clearing my garden (which felt like butchery given the way the shrubs look now), and there were a few churring away in the trees - when of course the camera was inside. Well, maybe it just proves I don't take it everywhere with me.
After the waxwings yesterday I decided not to waste the opportunity of a beautiful autumn afternoon and went to the University Botanical Gardens.
I kept remembering the trips there with my friends from the UK in summer when everything was so green and I couldn't quite believe I could be in Oulu. Now it is still beautiful, but starker. This year I can really feel the 'sap falling' and the need to bed down for the winter.
I have been sorting through my photos - to clear my hard drive and also to start compiling the annual calendar for Christmas presents. I guess it's been quite a year and I must admit choosing just 12 pictures will be hard. Maybe a theme instead (water perhaps -I must have a couple of thousand shots of snow and ice and meltwater). Anyway, once all the hedges in the garden have been brutalised, that's tomorrow's job.

We've had several centimetres of snow, followed by a thaw, and then big autumn storms. And then the peace of clear skies and a windless lake. it feels to early to hide in the darkness when there are still times like this. However I have given up cycling in to work as the weather is very changeable. However I did get a couple of circuits done round one lake this afternoon. And some of the gulls are still there so autumn's not over yet.

Another beautiful morning yesterday. And just in case I have been showing bias, here is the view to the other side of the bridge- Stora Enso at sunrise....

The temperature was 0'C this morning, and I've noticed the wagtails have gone. I feel I am paying far more attention to the changes than last year when everything was new. I'm also not looking forward to the cold. Well, that's not entirely true as I don't mind the snow and temperatures below -5'C: it's the grot around freezing that's horrible. However, at the moment the light is stunning and there are still hundreds of gulls around on the lake.
Today I had a great time with one class dissecting an eye. Not quite the usual thing to put into a physics lesson, but we had been studying light. Back in the UK schools had to have special arrangements with butchers (or abattoirs) to get hold of pigs' eyes, but I had the idea a while ago that it might be possible to get hold of elk eyes. Yes, I do think elk are magnificent animals and spent a fair amount of time looking out for them in the forests (and also from the car hoping they wouldn't jump out into the road), and of course, they are also very tasty! Knowing a few people with hunting connections I asked if it would be possible to get hold of eyes now the season has started. A colleague's husband obliged and I spent the day absolutely delighted with what the scalpel unearthed! The lens was utterly superb, and vitreous humour not the usual squirty black gunk that we got from the porcine equivalent. I really was chuffed with it and I think the students got something from it too! Such a shame I can't send a batch back to the UK.
Although I do not have access to as much equipment as in the UK, and have to improvise a bit, I am really enjoying being responsible for my own lessons and the apparatus. If the washing up is dirty then it's my fault, and I have full control of what I put out. I have worked with many excellent science techinicans (and there are some I would really love to have here), but sometimes those who are not so good, or took a dislike to me, totally had the power to wreck lessons by supplying duff stuff. I still have memories of a whole term with limewater that just would not turn cloudy to show carbon dioxide. Of course, as soon as it was back in the prep room it worked perfectly...... Now I only have myself to blame, and of course the part of me that came up with 'The Slightly Anarchistic Cookbook' does push things a bit. Maybe distilling a can of cider to burn off the ethanol is not quite on the curriculum (it certainly gets attention) and gives me the opportunity of teaching about the evils of methanol too (essential here as wood alcohol stills are not unkown). It is great teaching about pressure when there's snow on hand outside to do P=F/A experiments, and every Finn is an expert in ski types.

A few images from Friday morning's cycle ride into work (Pyykösjärvi , above and Oulujoki, below).