{"id":970,"date":"2026-03-18T10:18:53","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T10:18:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidakers.kitandkaboodleweb.co.uk\/?p=970"},"modified":"2026-03-18T10:51:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T10:51:06","slug":"july-2024-finland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidakers.photography\/wordpress\/july-2024-finland\/","title":{"rendered":"July 2024 \u2013 Finland"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is my second visit to Martinselkonen this time to capture some images of bear cubs \u2026\u2026plus anything else that passes my lens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a 7-day trip (including travel). 2 flights in each direction and as the return journey was a late return a hotel stay as well (just for a few hours). My first flight started in Manchester going to Helsinki and from there a short internal flight to Kajaani. I then travelled by taxi (approx. 2 hours) north\u2026\u2026\u2026. stopping of course for the essential provisions, like alcohol and biccies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My place of residence for this trip is just 1 kilometre from the Russian border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet again my hobby is punishing on the old body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The day starts with breakfast at 08:00 followed by a snack of cake and coffee at 12:00 \u2013 this is then followed by dinner at 15:00. The eating now stops until our return at 08:00 the following day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, after dinner (15:00) we assemble for our trip to the hides (4 types). Now all the hides are of a metal construction and well insulated as it gets a bit nippy in winter up here. However, this is not good in the summer as the hides become very warm and of course they have mosquitoes\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026lots of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, as I mentioned in my previous post at this time of year there is plenty of light, in fact it doesn\u2019t go dark at all, therefore as a photographer who wants to grab all of what he sees there\u2019s no chance of sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conditions under foot were to say the least a bit precarious \u2013 very wet (there had been plenty of rain). It felt like walking on a trampoline all the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, at 07:00 I\u2019m picked up and escorted back to our digs where we then grab a bit of breakfast and the whole experience happens again\u2026\u2026\u2026for the next 4 days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the things I noticed on this trip was that all the hides now had electrified fences around them. This made things a little difficult getting into and out of the hides, on one occasion \u201cI made up the circuit\u201d i.e. I got an electric shock. Normally one would just shrug this of however, few earlier I was fitted with a pacemaker to keep the old ticker going. On returning to the UK the cardio team knew when I\u2019d had the shock as they could check this against the device\u2026\u2026\u2026all clever stuff really.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A good trip all round, plenty of images of bear cubs and their mums, plus some climbing bears, which was good to see. I\u2019m back again in 2025 to photograph (hopefully Wolves) and Capercaillie\/Black Grouse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This is my second visit to Martinselkonen this time to capture some images of bear cubs \u2026\u2026plus anything else that passes my lens. This is a 7-day trip (including travel). 2 flights in each direction and as the return journey was a late return a hotel stay as well (just for a few hours). My…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":1,"label":"Uncategorized"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"https:\/\/www.davidakers.photography\/wordpress\/author\/admin\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":1,"name":"Uncategorized","slug":"uncategorized","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":1,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":7,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":1,"category_count":7,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Uncategorized","category_nicename":"uncategorized","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidakers.photography\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidakers.photography\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidakers.photography\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidakers.photography\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidakers.photography\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=970"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidakers.photography\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":997,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidakers.photography\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970\/revisions\/997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidakers.photography\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidakers.photography\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidakers.photography\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}