Summer photos: swamp

Here's some photos I took during the summer. They were all taken even further north, a few hundred kilometers northeast from Oulu. I spent some time there, and these were taken when I was out on a cloudberry hunting trip. The cloudberries grow on swamp, as you'll see.

You might notice the spruces in the background have branches pointing down and the whole tree is narrower than what you might see here in Oulu. It's because there's more snowfall during the winter and wide branches would collect too much snow on them and break. A few hundred kilometers can make a noticeable difference in the shape of the trees.

Here's what one swamp looked like. Not bike-friendly, I tell you!

I also saw reindeers in their natural habitat, not tied to a tree in a park in the middle of Oulu. This one was maybe 15 meters away. They aren't very afraid of vehicles so one can get photos of them.

There's about three times as many reindeer crashes as there are elk crashes, even though the elk population is mostly in southern Finland where there is lots more people and more traffic.

Reindeers live in northern Finland where there's less people. But as they're not afraid of cars they spend more time on the roads. They like to eat grass on the shoulders of the roads (maybe they lick salt, too) and they use roads as places to walk and even sleep. Being gray they're actually pretty hard to see until you're close to them, and then they might get scared by the car and run wildly in front of the car.