Wildlife and waterfalls in Lahemaa National Park

What beautiful countryside along the coast of northern Estonia! We took a driving tour of Lahemaa National Park and its surroundings with our guide Marko Poolamets (Capture Estonia) and managed to see quite a few birds and some of the most scenic places in the park.

We found lots of breeding birds and other critters in the Viru bog.

A Eurasian Teal hen and her ducklings

Female Goldeneye in another pool

Two Goldeneye ducklings swam leisurely in the pool while mom dived for food. No snapping turtles here to worry about.

Eurasian Barn Swallows were nesting in the observation tower. They look slightly different from our North American ones with their bright white breast and belly feathers. This is the national bird of Estonia, but their Estonian name translates to Storm Swallow or Eaves Swallow.

This little 3-4 inch lizard has the most northern distribution and largest geographical range of any lizard in the world. It is viviparous (gives birth to live young), which is the only way offspring could be produced in such a northerly climate. It is also strictly carnivorous, preying mostly on small bugs and flies. We saw several sunning themselves on the boardwalk in the bog.

I thought I was seeing a Green Darner from North America — the resemblance was so close. But this dragonfly is in a different genus and is called the GreenHawker. It appears to be the same size and exhibits the same behavior as its North American counterpart in patrolling the shoreline of a pond, occasionally darting out to chase small insects.

Driving from place to place chasing birds, we saw lakes, prairies, and woods, environments very similar to those in Minnesota, but north Estonia is at 59 degrees N, instead of the 45 degrees N of the Twin Cities. Not surprisingly, we found similar sorts of wildlife.

Common or Eurasian Cranes are indeed common, like the Sandhills of North America, and are about the same size.

This pair might have had chicks, but the grass and wildflowers were too high to tell.

We saw several Marsh Harriers flying over wide expanses of prairie.

Rose Finches were singing vigorously in the tall vegetation around a lake. They resemble our House Finches but are slightly bigger.

We heard and then finally saw a Pied Flycatcher singing and posing nicely.

Some spectacular rivers and waterfalls in northern Estonia are fed by spring rain and impervious limestone rock just beneath the soil.

An amber waterfall at Nõomeveski! It may be small as waterfalls go, but the water action here is powerful, causing the face of the waterfall to retreat continually, thus creating an amazing waterfall canyon.

I don’t know how these trees stabilize themselves along the bank of this river below the waterfall with so little soil above the limestone layer. The dark color of the water is due to dissolved tannins.

Jagala Waterfall is the largest waterfall in Estonia and must be spectacular when in full-flow across the expansive half circle of its approx. 150 foot face. Only 4 kilometers (about 2 1/2 miles) from its mouth in the Gulf of Finland, this is a great spot to find salmon and trout.

A portion of the 25-foot high Jagala waterfall — it must present an amazing sight in winter when frozen!