Wildlife, Stockholm

To reach Skansen, the walk up & down plus the views over the city are nice..

Unfortunately, the gulls in the vicinity are over-protective of their nests.. a keeper was walking out & he was attacked viciously. We could hardly believe it! No nest was in sight, and the keeper wasn't being provocative at all.

Guess what happened next? The bird attacked me! I tried to fend it off, but it does not give up until it poos on you. It squirted on the keeper, and then on me!

I NEVER knew gulls can be like that. The English ones (in Dover) are nothing like that!!

Till that point I liked everything Swedish, but now there's one type of 'bird' I definitely dislike :(

This is not a warning to those of you only visiting the city centre! Ticks, those tiny spider like creatures that also exist in the Alps and Central Europe is what this is about. In Sweden, they exist up to Gävle and then in a strip just along the coastline a bit further north. They are a nuisance if you walk in the grass in the countryside but wear bright clothes and you will soon see them. Good boots eliminates many on a forest walk. They are mostly harmless and only itch when they have found a nice and humid place on your body to stay. However, in the Stockholm, Uppland, Sörmland area - especially in the archipelagos and Lake Mälaren - they sometimes carry disease. One type is called "borelia" and is a bit like lymes disease. There is no vaccination for this but it can be cured with antibiotics. Symptoms are a bit like the flue. The other one is TBE but luckily fewer ticks carry this one. It CAN give you a sort of meningitis although usually it stays with flue like symptoms and you can vaccinate yourself against this. In fact, there are even special vaccination ships in the Stockholm archipelago in early summer. But don't let any of this stop you from coming to Sweden - if you are a forest walker, just check yourself in the evening so you spot them in time. Best way to get them off if they have already bitten you is NOT to pour anything on them but take a pair of tweezers and pull them straight out, then burn the buggers! What a pleasure that is even for an animal lover like me. I don't understand the existence of these ones!!!

Some of the ticks in the Stockholm area can infect you with meningitis or lyme disease.

If you've been in nature or just in a park you should make sure to check yourself properly, and if you find any ticks,make sure to remove them as quickly as possible.

The chance that the tick can cause meningitis or lyme disease is quite slim, but I think its good to be aware of the risk.

Not so much a risk in Stockholm, but in the countryside be careful not to step on one of these. It's Sweden's poisonous snake 'Huggorm'.