Today we picked up our car from Micke’s Car Hire, Gotland’s equivalent to Rent-a-Wreck. There’s a lot to see on this little island (40 x 150 kilometers)…92 church ruins, for example, plus many still functional. So we’re spending a couple of days driving around.
We added to our collection of nice bird pictures. Here is a pair of Mute Swans and two of their four chicks. We see these swans everywhere in Sweden, whereas in Iceland the really abundant swans are all Whooper Swans. Artic terns like to dive down on a person walking along the seashore – Lars finally managed to get a really nice picture of one while it was planning still another dive.
While eating lunch Sheila spotted a havsörn (much like a Northern American bald eagle but with both ends white – head and tail) being pestered by some gulls. It was a long, long way away but a 560 mm lens and some extensive cropping provides a clear story. The havsörn was simply trying to catch lunch, which it finally did.
Next on the day’s agenda were the raukar on the northern end of Fårö, an island that is the northern end of Gotland. Raukar are strangely shaped remnants of limestone that have been shaped by eons of erosion by the sea during major storms.
We thought this one deserves the title “Lady of the Sea”.
There are masses of wildflowers this week, at least along the road edges. TONS of columbines in assorted colors.
Anyone who plays nyckelharpa has seen a photo of the oldest-known evidence for its existence, carved on a door lintel of a 14th-century church in Källunge, Gotland. This naturally became a goal for us while here. What none of us were aware of was that it is within easy reach:
For those not familiar with the nyckelharpa, even in its modern, fully-chromatic form, the nyckelharpa player is the well-wigged person on the left.
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