Sunny and calm mornings are not to be taken for granted, so I drove to the red-throated diver location in the morning. Would be nice to get some front lit birds, which will really bring out the red throat of theirs. Walking through the forest I could see one bird take off but this was ok, I had been betting on that at least one of the birds would be watching over the chick at all times. After a while the other bird came back and I got treated to a post-flight preening session, even if it doesn’t photograph well.
It wasn’t perfectly calm and occasionally the wind broke the surface and I needed to wait. It only seemed to get worse and I decided against trying to find the chick again, I also suspected that the chick was hiding on the other side of the lake anyway because the parents weren’t the least bit interested in me although I was halfway to the spot where the chick had been hiding the last time (and the lake isn’t so very big).
Before I left, I saw some behaviour that I can’t really explain. I would otherwise say that it was aggressive behaviour against an intruder but I just don’t know what the intruder was because it sure wasn’t me, otherwise they’d done it long before. But I saw the birds kind of glance up just before it happened, so maybe a predator did a fly-over. But it was very strange, it only lasted for a few seconds with a lot of hooting and lunging in the water and then it was over.
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In the afternoon I took the gondola up Funäsdalsberget. Two reasons – I just wanted to ride the gondola (it was built last winter so it’s a new attraction) and then I had to sample the waffles in the top cabin, I’ve actually never done it in all these years. And I gotta say, the waffles were great! They had Belgian waffles and I suspect that they cheat and buy them ready instead of making on order, but they put ice cream and jelly and cream and marshmallows on top so who cares where the waffle comes from! I doubt I managed to get rid of all the calories walking down from the mountain, but it’s not exactly like I’m crying over that.
It was a good idea to re-visit the mountain anyway. Funäsdalsberget is not pretty and it’s covered in ski lifts and slopes, but the view is spectacular. You could say that from almost any mountain top, but somehow the mountains around just align in the right way to make Funäsdalsberget one of the better views you can get. You can even see all three major peaks of the Anåfjället massif in the same view (Ånnfjället, Blåstöten and Gråstöten), that’s rare! This was definitely a good reminder for me to come here some evening, even if it means doing it the hard way because the gondola closes already at 3pm. But it will be worth all the trouble!
