Oh hell, I can't get myself to write about the bird-race we participated (with a team we named 'Shit' by the way) on the 6th of the ongoing month. A very brief lesson in finnish history: December 6th is the independence day of Finland and therefore a public holiday. So now you know.

Last Friday we went twitching with Jukka. He's a teacher and a dental-patient. And he was on the Galapagos islands just a while ago (the bastard!). Our target was a Crested Lark in Lahti. It's a species that usually - once found somewhere in Finland - stays on the area for a long time, often months. This guy has been in Lahti for two months now. There's one in Lapland that's been there even longer. And if you ask me it's quite likely both of them will spend the whole winter on their chosen areas. If they don't die that is. The weather certainly isn't causing any trouble, the warmest temperature of all times in Lapland in December was just recorded.

So we drive towards Lahti. At about halfway a White-tailed Eagle flies over the road. It was migrating I guess. In Lahti we arrive, but where's the bird then. We know that the right area is on the south side of the railroad track. That's not the most accurate information in a city split in half by the railroad track. A map would be nice, but we don't have one. We could call someone for more information, but we don't do that. We could just ask someone local walking down the street, but we don't do that either. Instead, we drive around. At some point I'm on the parking lot of a large furniture store and I remember thinking to myself among all the people doing their Christmas shopping: "this isn't going quite as planned right now..."

Eventually, somehow, with luck, we find the right area. We park the car and split up and start searching for the lark. It's a large open area. There's a minigolf-track, a dog-park, a small skate-park, large lawns and walkways crisscrossing all over. After walking for a while I start thinking: "Man! This place is huge! And there's not much daylight left..." And just then I spot the bird feeding on the ground in front of me. Luck, once again (don't go twitching without it!). So I call Jukka and he gets there and I get my telescope and we watch the bird pecking the frozen ground and get good views of it. It actually hops towards us to a distance of about five meters and then eventually flies away. We head for a well deserved cup of coffee and then home.

I was approached by National Geographic magazine for this picture, they wanted it on the front cover, but I said: "Dude, I'm not in it for the money man, like my art has a deeper meaning you know..." Behold! The greatest photograph of a Crested Lark ever taken!