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Uncle Henry´s Universe.

About the blog

I have no heavy training... Barely Elementary School. Preferred the wilderness, it became my university, but I got muddy boots and experience instead of School knowledge so my English was therefore quite inadequate. This blog is a project to improve my skills in English language.

We all have our own universe, welcome to visit mine.

Last tracking season!

Golden eagle, Lynx, Wolf, Wolverine Posted on Wed, March 13, 2024 16:49

It was a somewhat strange winter this year with sometimes quite difficult tracking conditions. Cold for a long time without any mild weather, made the snow loose and deep to walk in. Then came the rain!

I got to track all three predators we work with, both wolverine, lynx, and wolf. It was nice! In recent weeks, everything has been about golden eagles. Here, too, the weather has been difficult, gray and hazy instead of sunshine and fresh wind. But I think we will still succeed in the end.

A lynx tracking was unexpectedly exciting. I tracked two lynxes, a female, and her cub. It was wet snow, dense forest, and steep and difficult terrain, just as usual in other words. At one point the tracks led off a steep slope and I followed, unaware that the rock beneath the snow was full of ice. It became a whirlwind trip on the ass.

The journey stopped at a cliff shelf, where even the lynx realized that they could not continue straight ahead. They instead followed a narrow cliff edge up the mountain, far too narrow for me, did not dare to take the same route. For a moment I wondered if I was stuck on the cliff shelf, but I finally managed to scramble up a slope under a windfall.

After several fruitless days behind the wheel of the work’s four-wheel-drive pickup, which is deadly boring when you can’t find any tracks, one day came when I got the most. It started with a tracking of a wolverine during the morning.

The weather alternated between cloudy and sunny, and the temperature was pleasant with a few minus degrees. The tracks pushed on like a train through the terrain, over ridges with sparse forest and along marshes and lakes. The wolverine marked its territory, so I got the DNA samples I needed. It was even up a pine and clawed at the bark, all around the tree and up to between two and three meters high!

Everything flowed perfectly and when I suddenly look up, I see two golden eagles playing in the fresh breeze. I was in our southernmost golden eagle territory, so it was immediately confirmed as active.

Happy for the unexpected golden eagle bonus, I turned for home. About 5 km from our farm, I suddenly found lots of wolf tracks. It turned out to be a pack of 7-8 wolves from Norway, which made a trip into our area. In future, this wolf range will probably be on both sides of the national border.

There was a short tracking as it turned out that they immediately found a moose lying and resting near the road. The hunt was short and efficient. There wasn’t much left of it, even though it hadn’t been that many hours. With such a large pack of hungry wolves, it makes for quite a bloody story.



Another hard week …

Bear, Golden eagle, Wolf, Wolverine Posted on Sun, March 22, 2020 20:19

… in paradise! I love this time of year, at least if the weather and winds are on mine and the eagles’ side. They have been playing against the blue sky almost every day, often in wonderful acrobatics. At one point, five eagles were close together for a short while, and my task then was to quickly assess their age based on what plumage they had. For a moment I was almost stressed, but it went over after a cup of hot chocolate and a sandwich with fried eggs.

Midday thaw is strong now. The night’s ten minus degrees quickly turn into comfortable seven to eight plus degrees. The fresh wolverine tracks at Wednesday’s scouting site look much older already after a few hours. There will be no tracking this day, no time right now, work with the eagles must go first.

Also stumbled upon spring’s first bear track. Always nice but surprisingly early this year. It gives a little extra excitement to the working day to know that there is a grumpy friend in the neighborhood, who just woke up in a wet bed, pushed the plug out of the butt and is insanely hungry after a long winter sleep.

I think the most exciting tracking I’ve ever done is when I followed day-fresh bear tracks one spring night with the full moon as the only light source. Damn, then I probably had a maximum heart rate!

The work week ended with a practical collaboration with a wolf. On my way to the scouting site for working with the eagle, I encounter very fresh wolf tracks. Some wolf I do not see, and the tracks disappear into the hard crust. I’ll track down the wolf until it’s time for the eagle. What I do not know is that the wolf takes over the work of tracking and tracks me during the day.

When I am on my way home after the day, I again meet fresh wolf tracks but now in my own tracks from the morning. And I who thought I was ready for the day! Just to take the baton and begin to track the wolf again. It became a long working day.



Wolverine

Wolverine Posted on Wed, December 18, 2019 21:51

The weather has changed almost every day recently. Sun, rain and snow and temperatures from plus eight degrees down to minus twenty. This morning, the fogs lightened as the sun broke through, and it became a beautiful day with fairly fresh wolverine tracks to follow.

The temperature dropped from plus degrees down to minus eight, but it quickly became hot in the clothes as the snow depth reached to the knees and the terrain became steep and difficult. The wolverine was not particularly poop needed, so it was a few kilometers of hiking before I got hold of the DNA.

The tracks of wolverine are easily recognizable. Large in relation to body and weight, which gives them a low ground pressure on the snow. They also move in a typical way, often in three or four leaps. In three leaps as in the picture, the right hind foot falls completely or partially into the groove after the left front foot. A characteristic track line that you can recognize from a long distance.