Wetlands in Helsinki I.: natural shores and lush vegetation

-

 

August 2021

On my last visit of Helsinki, I had a goal instead of going to museums and exhibitions to explore as many wetlands as possible, ideally close to the city centre. The Finnish approach to nature conservation in the city is different than ours, which is very enriching because we can learn a lot from each other. From what I have observed, biodiversity is there always the key factor. Even for the prize that sites are often very difficult for people to access and can only be observed from a small number of patches.



In Helsinki parks one can often found wetlands covered by dense littoral vegetation, living their own lives undisturbed, and Finns around them spending time with their leisure activities. These two worlds do not mix that much. On the contrary, in Prague there is more emphasis on the connection between urban life and nature. Wetlands in our parks often have part of the shores paved for better accessibility and visual effect. This makes it easier to observe what is happening on the water surface; but on the other hand, it reduces the natural littoral formation and, thus, the suitability of shores to various kinds of organisms. In addition, there is also more human disturbances of nesting birds, and excessive feeding of waterbirds with bad food such as bread. So, nothing is black and white, it is always a trade-off.








Most of the visited sites in Helsinki had very well developed macrophyte vegetation. Some ponds were so densely overgrown with reeds and sedges they were not any more suitable for e.g. many species of birds. I guess Finns are not used to eutrophic conditions, as nutrients are at low levels in natural boreal lakes. We have the opposite in Czech Republic, and without regular management, such shallow wetlands would probably disappear over time through 'grounding'.

Waterbirds breeding in the Helsinki wetlands include Common Moorhens, Eurasian teals, Mallards and Wigeons. Goldeneye females, which nest in tree cavities and maybe buildings, use the wetlands for brood rearing. I also saw a Tufted duck brood on a pond with an island in the northern part of Helsinki. Barnacle geese nest on islands near the coast, and some of them move with their offspring to ponds in Helsinki. Also, adult Mute swans can be seen on Helsinki wetlands. But not Whooper swans, they stick to the bay. I moreover saw a few Grey herons at one location, which was a breeding place of Moor frogs.


Pond with an island - a good nesting place

Dead wood increases biodiversity and also looks beautiful


Apart from vegetation overgrowth, a common problem of wetlands in Helsinki is the large biomass of fishes. Something what we´re dealing with also in Prague. For example, Prussian carp is one of the overpopulated species there.


Female of Wigeon with a duckling


The wetlands in Helsinki have a different atmosphere than in Prague. They are more wild and also worth exploring. Even at the cost of getting your shoes wet:)

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cooperative feeding of Common Mergansers

-
Image
 September 2022 Common mergansers ( Mergus merganser ), also known as Goosanders are diving ducks who mainly eat small fishes. Their daily requirement of fishes is around 400 g. Mergansers have different strategies of hunting them. They fish individually, but also cooperatively in small or large flocks. Fishing in flocks is a very impressive strategy. Their aim is to target a fish, or better a fish school, and push it together to shallow shore water where fishes can be easily caught. Mergansers are usually firstly moving slowly in loose formation, looking in short intervals under water surface for prey. When the fishes are located, the chase begins: birds rush rapidly on the water and drive fishes to the shore. In short distance runs, Mergansers have wings folded, but in distances more than few meters, they run with the aid of their wings. During this chasing run, Mergansers pack into a dense formation. When the fishes are pushed to the shallow water, some Mergansers dive repea...
Read more

Finnish Laskiaispulla - heaven in the mouth

-
Image
Laskiaispulla is one of my favourite Finnish sweet pastries.  It´s a light fluffy yeast dough, in Finnish pulla , cut and filled with almond paste or strawberry marmalade and decent amount of whipped cream. Extremely delicious! Now it´s a very good time to enjoy it, because it´s connected to the fasting before Easter when the meat is avoided. It pops up in cafes and shops, but the best is homemade anyway. Baking feels cosy and it´s nice to fill home with cardamon smell. For me, yeast dough was always challenging. Czech sweet pastry is also based a lot on yeast dough, and I like it very much, so I tried it several times. But the result wasn´t often as it should be. Sometimes my trials ended up hard and dry or had strong yeast smell. I think that I was making mistake in the method. Perhaps when the dough was supposed to be rising for couple hours and I couldn´t catch the right moment when it was ready.  Also, my dough was often too liquid, so I was adding later more and more ...
Read more

My traditional Christmas in Finland

-
Image
 December 2022 A real winter fairy tale awaited us when me and Petri celebrated Christmas in the Finnish countryside with his mum and her husband.  The travel itself was incredibly romantic. Four hours in the train, a snowy landscape with frozen lakes passing by, and we were excited for Christmas. For the first time in my life, I was in a dining wagon. I had already discovered that Finns are not used to prepare homemade sandwiches. However, they don't mind buying something in a shop, where they often reach for a karjalanpiirakka , but they won't prepare the classic bread with something. That's why they need trains with a dining wagon, which are not common in the  Czech republic , because there we have supplies from home. When we travel in the  Czech republic , our backpacks are stuffed with food and the only reason someone would visit a dining wagon is for a beer. I am a classic Czech who doesn´t travel without at home prepared snack. So, the day before our trip I wa...
Read more