A second self-trip

Friday the 29^th of June, I went on another forest trip by myself, to another part of the Vänge forest. It was a much shorter trip than last time, but I made some fun discoveries nonetheless.

Not unexpectedly, there was lost of pegmatite here as well.

On moving closer to examine this heap of rocks, my eyes were caught by something red and juicy.

These are woodland strawberries (a.k.a. wild strawberries, or smultron in Swedish), and taste absolutely delicious! One of the best things about Sweden is the everyman’s right or right to roam (allemansrätten), which means that anyone may pick and eat wild berries, mushrooms, game (at least small) and such – as long as it isn’t private property. A few woodland strawberries make excellent snack if you are out in the woods, especially when they are well ripe – they taste sweeter then, just like strawberries.

Between the woodland strawberries and the pegmatite heap, there was a not so much exposed exposure containing a far less tasty mystery.

Scattered across the grey cover, there were snail shells buried here and there, making it look like some form of snail burying ground, where they congregate to die.

That was my first thought…

… But when I picked one up…

It was very much alive, and, so to speak, more than that.

It had laid eggs, and was probably incubating them! This was not a snail cemetery, but a snail nesting ground!

This was pretty awesome, since I had never seen snail eggs before, never imagined what they would look like (never really wondered, to be fair – they’re quite gross animals). I put the snail back over its nest went on.

Among the expected pegmatite, I was not at all surprised to find glacial striations (see the post on my first self-trip).  

What I was surprised of was that a tree had stubbornly grown in the middle of the mound.

Although, it did not seem to be very healthy for the poor tree, with a twisted trunk and seemingly loose roots.

Still, what truly shocked me here was that I suddenly heard a loud flap of a pair of very large wings above my head. Looking up, I saw a large, dark bird of prey – a falcon, maybe – looking down right at me, from a tree about five metres away from where I stood, paralysed. For a second there, I thought my life was forfeit, but the bird was not that big, and apparently more scared of me, and flew away. Trapped in the moment, picking up my camera did not cross my mind until the magnificent bird was too far away.

Although I got scared for a while, it could have been much worse, because I passed the same spot a few days later, and then I saw a whole flock – at least four of them – taking off from the tree canopy. If all of them had been there the other day, I would have been much more frightened.

However, I suppose I realised that raptor birds, although highly efficient predators, with the advantage of flight and an ominous look, are not aggressive toward people, perhaps unless they are truly threatened.

The one other thing of note I discovered on this trip was a few examples of how chemical weathering (chemical alteration of rock material) can change the appearance of a rock, and thus trick you about what type it is.

Both seem to be pegmatite that has been partially covered by the ground for a long period of time. The exposed side was subjected to chemical weathering and changed colour and texture quite dramatically – it seems as if they have acquired a thin layer of a completely different rock type. Fairly recently, they have been more exposed, revealing what they probably looked like before the extensive weathering.

Thus, one should not trust the exterior of a rock to identify it. To be sure, one must either scratch it against a harder rock – the colour of the powder line left on the harder rock is the true colour of the other – or crack it open and examine a fresh surface – that way, you can note both the colour and the texture, thus giving a more complete picture – but that might destroy the rock, and might not be the best alternative, depending on what you want to do with the rock.

A bit further along the road, I found more woodland strawberries. Yaaay! Om nom nom nom…