norfolkbirding with chris mills
A TRIP REPORT TO NORTHERN FINLAND & NORWAY 2006
CHRIS MILLS, OSCAR CAMPBELL, ERIC PALMER & JAMES WALSH
Getting there
Flight from Stanstead to Oulu via Helsinki with Scandinavian airlines cost us around £200, there are cheaper flights to southern Finland or Norway, but we decided we didn't want to spend days of driving to reach our chosen areas of birding.
Guides
A must if you wish to see the owl species is to contact Finnature and ensure you have a guide booked for at least two evenings, we would recommend 1 night guided birding in the Oulu area and 1 night in the Kuusamo area, this way you optomise your chances of seeing all the Owls plus a range of other difficult species such as Hazel Hen etc. Finnature were extremely helpful at getting all of accommodation sorted out, this is far the easiest way to sort your accommodation, plus many places had other birders booked into them enabling the swapping of useful gen.
Maps
If you intend travelling around it is worth ordering a good quality road map we used the following maps:-
Freytag & Berndt 1:500,000 map of Finland. Shows the whole of Finland. Double-sided. I thought this was a decent road map, but not really of the right scale for locating birding locations.
Cappelens Kart 5 1:400,000 map of 'Nord-Troms og Finnmark' - essentially N Norway, plus the N end of Finland and Sweden. A little more detail, and fine for our purposes. Scaled at 1:250,000.
Temperature
Temperatures varied from as high as 18° C to as low as 3° C. In the north it is imperative go prepared as if you were going out on the Norfolk coast in January! Also a must is a pair of wellington boots
Accommodation
We stayed at accommodation that was all organised through Finnature, all places were clean and warm. Some were simple, others almost luxurious with sauna rooms etc. All the accommodation was relatively cheap, mostly costing between £15-25 per person per night, this generally included breakfast.
Car Hire
We booked with Budget, and collected a Mondeo estate at the airport, four wheel drive vehicles are not necessary.
Finnature did quote for car hire but were considerably more
Useful websites
www.finnature.com
Email address
Info@finnature.fi
Itinerary and Accommodation
Friday night 26 - 27 May 2006, 1 night
ACCOMMODATION AT LIMINGANLAHTI VISITOR CENTRE IN LIMINKA
Saturday night 27 - 28 May 2006, 1 night
ACCOMMODATION AT HOTEL VIHILUOTO IN KEMPELE CLOSE TO OULU AIRPORT
Sunday & Monday nights 28th - 29th – 30th May 2006 2 nights
ACCOMMODATION AT HOTEL RANTASIPI RUKAHOVI IN RUKATUNTURI, KUUSAMO
Tuesday night 30th May, 1 night and Saturday 3rd June, 1 night
ACCOMMODATION AT PEURASUVANNON SILTAMAJAT IN SODANKYLÄ - Log cabin number 11
Wednesday & Thursday night 31 May & 1st June 2006, 2 nights
ACCOMMODATION PIKKUSKITSI LODGE IN VESTRE JAKOBSELV IN NORWAY
Friday night 2nd June 2006, 1 night
ACCOMMODATION IN WHITE HOUSE EKKEROY HOLIDAY HOUSE AT EKKERØY
26 - 27 May 2006, 1 night
ACCOMMODATION LIMINGANLAHTI VISITOR CENTRE IN LIMINKA
27 - 28 May 2006, 1 night
ACCOMMODATION HOTEL VIHUOTO IN KEMPELE CLOSE TO OULU
28 - 30 May 2006, 2 nights
ACCOMMODATION HOTEL RANTASIPI IN KUUSAMO
30 - 31 May 2006, 1 night
ACCOMMODATION LOG CABIN PEURASUVANNON SILTAMAJAT IN SODANKYLA
31 May - 2 June 2006, 2 nights
PIKKUSKITSSI LODGE VESTRE JAKOBSELV IN NORWAY
2 - 3 June 2006, 1 night
EKKEROY HOLIDAY HOUSE IN EKKEROY IN WHITE HOUSE
3 - 4 June 2006,
ACCOMMODATION LOG CABIN PEURASUVANNON SILTAMAJAT IN SODANKYLA
Money & currency
Euros are the currency in Finland and we also had no problems here using credit/visa cards. However, in Norway it is Norwegian Crona, it would be easier to have the currency with you than getting it changed when you arrive there, and also we had problems with credit/visa cards - there seemed to be no explanation why certain cards worked in one venue and then not in another, DON'T RELY ON USING CREDIT CARDS IN NORWAY!