Waiting for the Fog to Lift

Some mornings begin before sunrise but not in darkness. I left the cottage at 3am and drove toward Siikalahti through the pale blue light of early dawn, the temperature hovering somewhere between +1 and +3°C — hard to believe for well past mid-May. The road was already beautiful. Mist resting low over fields, soft light gathering behind the trees, quiet reflections in the water beside the road. More than once I felt like stopping, but I kept going. At that hour, timing matters, and I wanted to reach Siikalahti early.

Barnacle geese on the way to the Arctic feeding grounds

I arrived at the bird tower around 4am, hoping for fog over the lake — and found it completely wrapped in it. Water and sky had almost disappeared into one another. The horizon was gone.

I stood there alone for a long time, surrounded by whiteness and birdsong. Before anything could be seen, it could be heard. Calls emerging from different directions in the fog, some close, some impossible to place. Occasionally movement would appear briefly and vanish again — a few barnacle geese lifting from the lake, wings cutting through the mist before dissolving back into it.

It was beautiful, but difficult to photograph. In dense fog the eye keeps searching for an edge, something to settle on, and the camera does the same. There was almost nothing to focus on. Most of the morning was spent waiting — watching the fog shift almost imperceptibly and expecting something to emerge from it.

Common tern surveying the lake through morning fog

Later I moved to the hides. The common terns were everywhere, constantly calling and flying low over the water, weaving through the fog in the sunrise light as if they were playing inside it. Quick, weightless, never still. Their movement brought energy into the stillness of the morning. Around them the lake remained calm. Slowly the light began to strengthen and the mist started opening in fragments. Shapes became visible again: northern shovelers moving quietly through the water, pochards drifting slowly in the open, a reed bunting moving among the dry grasses at the edge of the reeds.

Then suddenly several ruffs arrived nearby — completely unexpected. One of those brief moments that immediately changes the feeling of the morning and makes the long waiting worthwhile.

Ruffs and common terns sharing an island

By the time I climbed back to the tower, the fog had lifted and the landscape had opened fully. A few other birdwatchers had arrived by then, and the lake felt different again — less intimate, more awake.

Whooper swans drifted across the open water, alongside goldeneyes and wigeons. I was cold by then, and tired enough to feel it deeply. Note to self: always bring a thermos with hot tea. Eventually I left, still spotting and hearing birds along the way — fieldfares, barnacle geese, blackbirds, lapwings among many others — before arriving back at the cottage around 9:30, ready for a well-earned breakfast.

Siikalahti has a way of making time disappear. One of Finland’s most important bird wetlands, it becomes especially alive during spring migration as thousands of birds pause here on their way north toward Arctic breeding grounds. Every visit feels shaped by weather, timing and chance. No two mornings are ever quite the same. This one belonged to fog, waiting, and the slow reveal of the lake.

The Lake Never Repeats