Visited June 5th, 2014 With the Lakeland Horticulture Society.
Carl Linnaeus’s work laid the foundation for Sweden as a nature-conscious country with twenty nine national parks and over 4000 nature reserves, each with a specific purpose. The Swede’s consider Linnaeus as the pioneer of modern day ecology as his work showed the connection between plants, animals and their environment. Approximately a fifth of the Country of Sweden is covered by wetlands which are a complex ecosystem and important for nature conservation. Our last visit of the day was to a wetland nature reserve at the south-easterly edge of Sweden’s Lake Täkern known for over a hundred years as “Lake of the Birds.” This nature reserve is one of Europe’s most important nesting sites for birds breeding in the spring and a rest stop and feeding ground for migrating birds in the fall.
Four nature reserves surround this open lake with large expanses of reed beds (over 5 square miles or13 square kilometers), with wet meadows, shore woods, marshes and forests bordering portions the lake. This “huge bird lake,” as it is descriptively called, is North Europe’s largest reed bed. Our stop was Naturum Tåkern’s information centre at Glänås on the southern side of the lake, ceremoniously opened in May of 2012 by H.M. King Carl XVI Gustaf.
The Naturum Tåkern information centre at Glänås is a 21st century low lying structure that uses reed bed thatch for the external face of the building and thatch for the roof. The surrounding region of Östergötland has had a history of traditional reed thatching as a rural industry. This inspired the architect Gert Wingårdh to use reed bed thatch for the external face of the building. The thatch also blends with the natural landscape of the lake which was an important consideration in the design.
The interior of the building reflects contemporary design and materials with skylights and high open space used for aerial displays. Replicas of flitting dragonflies and butterflies dangle from underneath a skylight. A goose in flight is the children story of the young Swedish boy Niles who traveled across Sweden’s countryside on the goose’s back while he received an education in nature, geography and folklore. On a table vases of flowers displayed the flora blooming in June on the nature reserve.
George’s friend Sverker Kärrsgård, who before his retirement was Head of the Environmental Unit of the county of Östergötland, managed numerous of these nature reserves including Naturum Tåkern. George told me that many of the reserves and information centres were set up on Sverker’s initiative. Sverke met our group at Naturum Tåkern and gave us background information about the reserves.
Täkern became a lake for the birds in the mid-nineteenth century when landowners around the lake lowered the water level to drain the wetlands to create new land that could be used for farming. There were proposals to completely drain the lake. This created the first major conservation debate in Sweden. Fortunately for future generations there was no money for that project once it was approved. The reed beds expanded and aquatic plants thrived with access to sunlight in the shallow waters (approximately 2 ½ ‘ or 0.8 meters) providing a place for insects, crustaceans and other invertebrates to live. This in turn provides food for thousands of water birds. Fish found in the shallow waters are roach, rudd, carp, tench with pike and perch popular for fishing.
On a footpath approximately 2 ½ miles (four kilometre) at Glänås a walk can be taken through the forest and across wet meadows. Horses and eight hundred cattle graze the meadows to keep them open. Nesting in the meadows are Lapwings, Redshanks, Meadow Pipits, Yellow Wagtails and Snipe. In early June the marsh, fly and musk orchids bloom along with blue eyed primrose.
We had limited time at the nature centre so a walk on the boardwalk through the reed bed was a quick option to observe bird activity. Several flocks of birds would swoop close to the water and then spiral into the sky again and again. Black- headed gulls sitting in the placid water were the only birds still for a quick photo shoot. The azure sky was vibrating with hundreds of booms, creaks, grunts, tinkling and honks that only a very knowledgeable bird watcher would be able to decipher and identify. The yellow blooms of flag iris with their “feet” in the shallow water, occasionally peaked out from the dark green thickets of reeds.
A long ramp up into the tree canopy led to a bird watching tower and provided an expansive view of the reserve. Southern Sweden is an important migratory path in the spring and autumn. The high points at this lake are May and June when 120 species of birds are breeding at the reserve. From September through October it has been counted at Täkern 20,000 Bean Geese, dabbling ducks, waders, 2000 Whooper Swans, thousands of Pochards and coots and a few thousand cranes resting on the lake. Two hundred seventy species of birds have been identified at the Lake throughout the seasons.
From the tower a glimpse of a Mute Swan could barely be seen in the reeds. Less conspicuous to the uninitiated bird watcher would be the great bittern bird of the heron family (first described and named by Linnaeus in 1758), whose population is declining in Europe. The great bittern forges in the reed beds and uses the reeds for camouflage when needed. Also named by Linnaeus is the great reed warbler that uses the reed beds for their habitat during the breeding season. The warblers dine on a rich diet of moths, dragonflies, insect larvae, small fish and frogs that this protected environment provides.
Before we left we watched the movie “A Paradise for the Birds.” It featured terns from the Baltic Sea, thousands of cranes from northern Sweden, pochards from Russia, bean geese from Finland and Russia and a cast of hundreds of others that stop at the lake on annual autumn migrations. It was an impressive big screen visual tour of Lake Täkern.
Our visit to this shallow lake where white tail eagles hunt for food and the large gathering of Mute Swans, the emblem of Sweden, stop on their way south in the autumn to feed in the nutrient rich waters was short. It was late afternoon and time to leave the nearby woods where the very young Princess Estelle, Duchess of Östergötland, had recently inaugurated her fairy tale woodland path of creatures that reside at Lake Täkern.
Epilogue
George said that he has visited Täkern Nature Reserve numerous times. If you are interested in bird watching as he is, or just to see photos of the birds of Southern Sweden in nature reserves and National Parks visit: http://www.takern.se/Bilagor/Birding%20Southern%20Sweden.pdf
for comprehensive information on the bird life that can be found throughout various times of the years at these reserves and the best times for visits.
For more information about the reserve, visit: http://www.naturumtakern.se/