Uncle Henry´s Universe.

In a blossoming sea and with a sky of birdsong, our work continues to clear hiking trails in the nature reserves.

It’s a crappy job, but someone has to do it…

Wood anemone, common hepatica and alternate-leaved golden-saxifrage will be our floor throughout the day’s work in Gultberget nature reserve.

Common wood sorrel, Oxalis acetosella, with fresh sour taste, covers the ground between coarse spruces and has also found a sanctuary in the crevice between two tree trunks.

During December – February the moose bulls lose their horns, when the snow disappears in the spring you can find really nice ones if you are lucky. Large and heavy horns are usually not too far apart but can still be difficult to find.

I try to let go the horns now, as there have been quite a few over the years … Really try! But suddenly there is an extra nice horn … and I just cannot help it. Heavy to carry but home it should!

Proud as a schoolboy, the treasure is later shown to my wife, who, with ill-concealed sarcasm, asks what I intend to do with the horn … And damn, I have never come up with any good answer!

Because of the prevalent corona pandemic in the world, humanitarian work and healthcare professionals have suddenly become heroes and are now receiving the attention and status that they reasonably should have enjoyed each day before.

Currently, the International Museum of the Red Cross and Red Crescent is closed like so much else due to covid-19, but when it reopens, I recommend a visit. You will find it in Geneva, Switzerland. There are thoughtful and interesting exhibits about the work that is going on unabated around the world. I think it can provide some perspective about what we are experiencing now that the pandemic changes everything, even in rich and secure democracies in the West, which most of us who live there are completely unaccustomed to.

The Red Cross is an international humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million volunteers, members and employees worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to guarantee respect for all people, and to prevent and alleviate human suffering. The movement consists of several different organizations that are legally independent of each other but are united within the movement through common basic principles, goals, symbols, statutes and governing organizations.

One organization is the International Red Cross Committee (ICRC) a neutral, impartial and independent organization founded in 1863 in Geneva, Switzerland, by Henry Dunant and Gustave Moynier. Its mission is to assist people affected by wars, conflicts or other violent situations with protection and humanitarian efforts.

Another organization is the International Red Cross-Red Crescent Federation (IFRC) founded in 1919 and today coordinates activities between the 189 national associations within the movement. At the international level, the Federation, in close cooperation with the national associations, conducts and organizes aid missions in large-scale crises. The International Federation Secretariat is in Geneva, Switzerland.

National Red Cross or Red Crescent Societies are found in almost every country in the world. They work according to the principles of international humanitarian law and the charter of the international movement. In many countries, they are linked to the respective national health care systems by providing emergency care.

A museum well worth a visit, as well as so many other attractions in Geneva. A city I would love to return to when the opportunity to travel freely within Europe has returned.

When I did my military duty as a young man, I was given the opportunity to undergo medical training. This meant that during the coming years I worked as an orderly in hospitals with emergency care, in the district with home health care and in elderly care. An extremely rewarding time that enriched me in many ways, not financially in the first place but in terms of experience.

In the seventies, it was quite uncommon for a man to work in healthcare, (doctor except, of course) it was a typical women’s profession! Therefore, we were welcomed by our female colleagues who hoped that our attendance would automatically raise their low wages somewhat. Maybe even manage to change working conditions for the better …

I had a 35 km route to the hospital and often worked what we in Sweden call – shared tours. Work in the morning then 4 hours off (without pay) and then work in the evening. Four hours to kill every day, boring in the long run, there is always a lot you would like to have done at home instead.

A lot has happened since the seventies! Richard Nixon is no longer the president of the United States, we have become twice as many people in the world and Waterloo is not played as often on the radio as when ABBA won the Eurovision Contest … but health care professions in Sweden is still drawn with shared tours and in terms of wages, there is still much to be desired.

Applause, concerts and other events that pay tribute to the medical staff are of course genuinely nice, but when the pandemic is over, let us hope that it also be noted on the staff’s working conditions and wages.

There has not been much snow in this winter, but more wind, which has caused some disruption along our hiking trails in the nature reserves.

Because of the corona pandemic, many seek refuge in our nature reserves. We have more visitors this spring than ever before, especially in the southern more densely populated part of the county.

Here in the north there is still snow in the altitudes and many roads are wet with thawing, but we have started to look at the southernmost reserves in our area of work. Ginbergsängen is one of them and there was a lot of clearance required before the hiking trail was open. We were two with chainsaws that worked all day even though the distance is only 3 km.

Now we only have 65 km to go before the work on the hiking trails is ready for the summer.

Keep distance, stay safe!

Social Distancing, Self-isolation, Quarantine… COVID-19… I cried desperately! But the only answer I got was a series of double-clicks which gradually accelerate into a popping sound like a cork coming of a champagne bottle, which was followed by scraping sounds… And then he ended our conversation with a big burp!

 Quite brutal types up here in the woods!

In today’s production forests there is a housing shortage. The proportion of old and / or dead trees is too low. In rational tree cultivation, there is rarely room for the natural cavities that old trees get over time. Nor do they accommodate generations of carved holes from woodpeckers.

The housing shortage is overwhelming. Although we have quite a few birdhouses on our farm, newly set up are immediately occupied. Sometimes I can barely turn my back before a bird flies in and inspects. Of ten new birdhouses last year, all tenants received!

Today I picked up some birdhouses to set up in the nature reserves. The larger ones at the bottom of the image are for boreal owl. They often use old housing holes after the black woodpecker. Our largest woodpecker, black as coal and with a fiery red crown (Male) The female has only the top hind crown in red. You’ve probably heard them drum in the spring, especially on dry tree trunks with good acoustics. They can be heard up to 4 km! Powerful and methodically, like a machine gun, wacka–wacka-wacka-wacka…

Now this spring, if you hear something similar, knock-knock-knock-knock – Aaii, damn …

then it´s probably me who nails up one of all these birdhouses!

Barranco del Infierno (“Hell’s Gorge”) is a ravine and a Nature Reserve where only 300 people can enter a day, in order to preserve the environment and not alter the development of the species, the flora and the fauna. To visit the ravine a previous reservation is essential. They open the entrance at 08.30 and it costs about 8.50 euros for an adult tourist. (Cheaper for children and locals)

When we visited Adeje in the south of the island of Tenerife, just over a month ago, we rented an apartment next to the reserve border. Ideal for exciting hikes in the mountains along winding goat paths. It was warm and steep, but the view was always seductive.

Canaries (Serinus canaria) and Canary Chiffchaff (Phylloscopus canariensis) sang everywhere, and African blue tit (Cyanistes teneriffae) was often seen among the bushes. Sometimes it rattles on the ground when a lizard ran away. Tenerife lizard (Gallotia galloti), an endemic species. The male is large and has a blueish stain on both sides of its head, the female is smaller with brown lines on the sides or molted.

The entrance to the ravine was just 100 meters from our accommodation so we took a chance and went there early one morning, hoping that there would be an opportunity to visit the reserve, but no! Only bookings are possible. The ravine is so popular to visit and only 300 guests are admitted per day. We bought tickets for a visit a few days later.

Then came Calima, the sandstorm and ravine closed immediately for visits. In 2009, a deadly accident happened, and the ravine was then closed to visitors for six years. Today, it is open again after extensive maintenance work to secure the trail. Our booking was moved forward a few days but, in the end, we got a clear sign.

The instructions are clear. All visitors wear helmets – all the time. No one is allowed to leave the hiking trail and on some extra risky paths one should not stop but be in motion all the time.

The further into the ravine you get, the steeper the rock walls feel. You are asked to be quiet during parts of the hike, a sympathetic condition that I would like to salute at all, but here is the idea that you should hear stones that collapse and be warned in time. We keep up the speed to keep a distance from a group of loud visitors who laugh, talk and shout to each other …

It was an exciting landscape and according to all the nice information boards there were lots of interesting endemic species of all kinds, both terrestrial and aquatic. For the invertebrate it should be around 416 species among which the groups of arthropods, millipedes, arachnids and mollusks stand out… I say!

The trail ended at the highest waterfall on Tenerife, about 200 meters high. Here water flows all year round and a small levada leads it via an old mill down to Adeje.

Wish we had a little more time to explore the gorge. Three and a half hours it was thought that the tour would take, and you knew that more visitors were waiting for the day. It did not get completely relaxing. Probably prefer “our own” nature reserves, where there is endless space, hardly a human and absolutely no cactus.

But as I said, very interesting and exciting. Well maintained! Well worth a visit.

No problems with the language, it’s universal. The Barbary partridge (Alectoris barbara) say, do you have a sandwich?

The restaurant is open for a few more weeks, the nights are still cold, and snowfall usually pops up during the month of April.

As today’s bird visitors retreat and dusk falls, other guests show up at the diner. Tonight, a badger came by for a decent portion of sunflower seeds. It munched eagerly and seemed pleased with the service at our place. (excuse the quality of the picture, it was taken with the mobile phone through the kitchen window)

We live in a break between winter and spring now. I have not heard the male lynx shouting from the mountains in the last nights, maybe he has met his female and have finished courtship. Instead shouts a tawny owl persistently, and at dusk the male Eurasian woodcock performs a courtship display flight over the countryside and our little farm, oårt oårt oårt – oårt PISSP!

Delightfully! New voices begin.

We are under attack by a virus! The news reporting is alarmingly loud, but our world has become much quieter…

At 8 o’clock this morning, Norway closed its border. And both SAS and Norwegian have decided to put most of its fleet of aircraft on the ground until further notice. None of this is in my mind during the morning walk along the little river where we live. The river is full of water now and its sound therefore deafening. As I reached the top of the ridge the river goes more silent and the bird song takes over. Eurasian Siskin, a Common Chaffinch and suddenly a Winter Wren. It is amazing how one of our smallest birds can have such a remarkably strong voice.

It wasn’t until I enjoyed the bird song that I suddenly realized how quiet it was around me. The occasional frequent car traffic through our valley with Norwegians, who are going down to our shopping centres to trade goods at half the price compared to home, has ceased … there is not a car and during two hours of walking only one airplane is heard.

I think most of us are aware of the air pollution that exists around the world, but how many thinks of all sound pollution … If you start with sound recording, then you are immediately enlightened! The sky is so full of aircraft nowadays that it is almost impossible to get a clean atmospheric sound. Something that you do not want to include is always present. The sound of the aircrafts often overlaps, and the rumbling diesel engines from commercial traffic are mixed with car traffic and motorcycles, and chainsaws, and it is astonishing how far out into the wilderness that the happy but enervating melody from the ice cream truck reaches!

However miserable and scary the virus pandemic is, it will be interesting to follow the development in the near future. We get to see a community around us that we haven’t experienced in many decades, if ever. At least, toilet paper stocking should be a fairly new phenomenon.