Portland Moor, Lille Vildmose, North Jutland in June-July-August

In Portland Mose have been established catwalks so you can walk safely through the wetland.

Lille Vildmose in the eastern part of Himmerland is an eldorado for nature lovers and people interested in history. It is Denmark's largest liste land area of 7600 hectare. Here are among other things Northwest Europe's largest raised bog, lakes whicch are rich in birds and unique nature- and grazing woods. There are opportunities to see royal eagle, wild boar, crane, red deer, otter and other large animals. It is all about enjoying the silence, the scents, the seasons, the open land, the bird life and the numerous lesser animals and plants.


In the Vildmose-land on the edge of Kattegat and just south of Limfjorden are rich opportunities to research the terrain on foot, on bicycle or in car. Lille Vildmosecenter is the natural center of a visit. Here is all information about the nature and culture in Vildmosen. People can choose to research the moor by themselves or on a guided tour.


Hare's-tail Cottongrass (Eriophorum vaginatum )

In the nature of Lille Vildmose you can walk on boggy ground where carnivorus plants like sundew grows. Its food are little flies, mosquitos and spiders, which it catches with its tempting, shining and sticky drops. In the sky above the moor and the open land are the best opportunities in Denmark to see the royal eagle hovering above its hunting grounds. The Vildmose-land is the cradle of the Danish royal eagles.

Long-tailed tit and swallow
From 1999 have royal eagles been breeding in the forest of Lille Vildmose, and now has the large white-tailed eagle also established itself in the area. The eagles are a part of the greatness of nature in the moor land. From Hegnsvej (road) south of Høstemark Forest in the northeastern part of Lille Vildmose are daily seen royal eagles, and at Tofte Sø (lake) has during long periods almost been a guarantee that the white-tailed eagle came in the telescope. The migthy raptors hunt often cormorants in the summer season by the large cormorant colony at Tofte Sø. Horses in Lille Vildmose

For several years the central lake has had Denmark's largest
colony of cormorants, about 4.000 couple, but the colony is
smaller now. This might be because there is a lack of fish in
Kattegat - or maybe because the eagles hunt the cormorants
and stress them.
Europe's tallest bird, the crane, is a characteristic touch in the
nature of the moor. From March until late autumn the trumpets
of the cranes are heard early morning and late evening. There
are several breeding couple in the area, which in periods attract
flocks of cranes that often seek food upon cultivated fields near
the Lille Vildmosecenter.


Cloudberry and Bog Rosemary

The landscape of Lille Vildmose is very varied with open
extensive land of raised bogs, lakes, grass fenns with horses
and cattle , birch- thicket, grazing-woods with red deer and
wild boar, plains and brown sections with a production of
spaghnum, which is about to stop in order to re-establish the
wet moor. Seen from the 30-40 m high hills which run north-
south west of Lille Vildmose are several view points. If you
stand an early morning on one of the hills and look across the
low moor land, while there is a ground mist, it is easy to sense
the form and extent of the moor.


Cranberry and Blackberry


Common Brimstone and Idas Blue

The ground mist fills each low place like a duvet of mist, so
you can see the outline of the moor. Some of Denmark's most
animal-rich grazing woods are situated in Lille Vildmose.
Høstemark Forest to the northeast and Tofte Forest to the
south are surrounded by game fences, but they can be visited
on guided tours. In the grazing woods are some of the largest
population of red deer in the country.


Painted Lady and Stag's-horn Clubmoss


Moor Frog and Common Lizard

In Tofte Forest and moor is Denmark's oldest and largest
population of 150 wild boars. Caused by the rich animal life
the grazing woods have a richness in species which is unique
in Denmark. In Høstemark Forest which is the best examined,
have scientists found more than 5.000 species of plants and
animals. And there are still found new species in the Vildmose-
forests, which are treasures of diversity.




Large heath and Common Blue


Eurasian Hobby/Lærkefalk/Falco subbuteo)
photo: Hegnsvej, Lille Vildmose: stig bachmann nielsen, Naturplan foto

The raised bog belong to the largest and best preserved
in the northwest European lowland. Tofte moor is an
impressive plain, from where you can hear the Eurasian
curlew, Europe's largest water bird, when it is whistling in
the summer season. The creation of Lille Vildmose begun
about 6.000 years ago in the time of the Stone Age Sea.

The eastern Himmerland was an archipelago with the
present Vildmose under water. Together with the lift of the
land Vildmosen was divided from the sea, which today is
Kattegat. The area became a lagoon, which edges gradually
was overgrown in reeds. A swamp developed during the times,
where spaghnum moss arrived. These mosses took over the
nature scenery and changed the swamp into a hængesæk (=
a plant-society made by tangled roots and stalks, which is
found and grows in the surface of a moor or above open water
without any connection to the bottom) - and later into a raised
bog with a firm plant cover. When the mosses came to the Lille
Vildmose- area around year 500 A.C., it gradually became the
raised bog we know today.




Migrant Hawker/Efterårsmosaikguldsmed/Aeshna mixta



Auerochs, these ochses are very shy, not curious like most cattle, they turn their back on you, "I want to be alone".

The sphagnum mosses can live and grow on rain water
and the nutrients which follows the rain. In this way a raised
bog functions as a gigantic landscape-sponge, which keeps the
rain water. The upper about half meter of the moor are living
spaghnum mosses, which grows and each year makes the moor
a few millimeter thicker. Under the living mosses is a peat-layer,
filled with water and free of oxygen. This peat-layer which
bottom is about 1.500 years old, is where Lille Vildmose is best
preserved in the central part of Tofte Moor. How it looks below
the upper and living layers of spaghnum moss is seen upon the
brown areas at Grønvej and Møllesøvej, where is still being
digged spaghnum for pot-soil. Here are cut meters from the
peat-layers, but the production of spaghnum will soon stop.

Contemporary to the stop of production the wet raised bog
nature will be re-created. It is the plan that the raised bog
will reach the extent almost like in the beginning of its life.
Along Hegnsvej in the northern part of Vildmosen has the
peat-production been given up, and here is seen how the
nature comes in and changes almost from month to month.
Here have now the greylags, cranes and marsh harriers begun
to breed, and spring and summer the bittern is heard, this
bird is the ghost of the reed-wood, it cries like an angry bull,
that roars far away. Thousend of dragon flies fly across the
old digging-places, which are now water filled and getting
overgrown after being used for industrial production for many
decades. The nature is getting back its lost terrain in Lille
Vildmose, which will become wetter and wilder in the years
to come.


Bulrush

photo Lille Vildmose, Portland, June, July, August 2008/2009: grethe bachmann

Eurasian Hobby/Lærkefalk
Falco subbuteo



photo Portlandmose, Lille Vildmose 20. June 2009:
stig bachmann nielsen, Naturplan foto

The Eurasian hobby can without slowing down its speed catch a dragonfly in the air, bring the insect to its beak with the claw and eat it. Just look at a gallery with fantastic photos of the hobby. See especially nr. 7 on the first page by Mogens Hansen, where the falcon eats its "lunch" in the air. The hobby is able to catch both swallows and swifts on the wing, and barn swallows or house Martins have a characteristic "hobby" alarm call.

The hobby prefers open landscapes with small forests and wetlands. Its food are birds, insects and exceptionally bats. This pretty little flyer is the size of a kestrel, but has another plumage and flight. It is a well-proportioned falcon with long, pointed wings and a rather short tail. It has an elegant flight with fast strong strokes of the wings interrupted by a glide. The hobby does not hover like the kestrel. Adults are slate-grey above, and streaked lengthwise below, with a white throat. Close views enable the red "trousers" and vent to be seen. Sexes are similar, but juveniles are generally much browner.

The hobby is a true falcon. In falconry one of the characteristics of a true falcon is to prey on birds in the open air. They circle hundreds of feet into the air, waiting for the prey to be flushed out by beaters or dogs. In falconry in the Middle Ages only the larger female bird was properly called the falcon. The male, which is up to one third smaller than the female, was the tiercel. The long winged falcons were restricted to nobility.The hobby was considered the easiest falcon to train, it was mostly used for hunting larks.

The Eurasian Hobby is native to most of Europe and Asia and some localitites in Northwest Africa. In Europe it breeds mostly in lowlands, in general avoiding large areas without trees. In Denmark the species is especially connected to older, open forests with grazed meadows or wetlands or other open nearby biotops which are rich in insect-life.

In the 1800s the hobby was probably a common breeding bird in Denmark, but with the intensive agriculture the species declined. Environmental poisons contributed furthermore to this development. Around 1950 the breeding population were reduced to max. 20 pair. It seemed that the decline continued up to the Millenium with only 5 pair. 2005 was the best hobby-year since the start of *DOF's project Truede og Sjældne Ynglefugle (DATSY) in 1998 with at least 15 pair. In 2006 were at least 10 breeding pair in Denmark. Hobbies nest in old nests of crows and other birds, laying 2-4 eggs. Three hobby-pair have breeded in old crow-nests put up in pylons, all in Sønderjylland. The hobby overwinters in Africa.

Eurasian Hobby see : Observationer

A wonderful story about a young Eurasian hobby with a broken wing.
A hobby with a broken wing was saved. After 29 days on Aabenraa Veterinary Hospital the young hobby could be discharged. The rare falcon was found with a broken wing by a local ornitologist Jesper Tofft from Sønderjylland. The hobby was a young bird from one of the crow-nests in the pylons in Sønderjylland. Jesper Tofft keeps an open eye with the Eurasian Hobby in the above mentioned project *DATSY, and he brought the hobby to the veterinary hospital. Dyrenes Beskyttelse (Animal Protection) has a nursing station in connection to the hospital. Usually birds of prey and owls with a broken wing do not achieve a nursing place, since experience shows that hunting birds with broken wings seldom can be cured and become effective hunters in the wild again. But the veterinarian Torben Knage-Rasmussen made an exception. "The ornitologists argued for that we had to do everything in order to heal this young hobby, because the species are so rare in Denmark that each specimen is of importance to the population" And then the veterinarian said yes. There are probably only 15 hobby pair in Denmark at present.

Except the broken wing the hobby was in good condition and vigorous. It also had a good appetite. It had to be fed on the first day, but already on the next day it eat the food itself. (chickens). On the first days the falcon was in a box with straw, but it soon came to
a small volière, and three weeks later in a large volière where it trained the first flights. The falcon was calm and composed during the whole course, and the veterinarian describes it as an easy patient. He said that he had taken care of various birds of prey, but the hobby was very balanced with a calm temper. It wasn't confused although it was experiencing an unusual situation.

Fortunately it showed that the nursing was worth the try. After 29 days of nursing the young patient was ringed, before Jesper Tofft put the it out near the nest where it was born. The falcon was so fast and brisk that the ready photographer missed to sharpen the picture. It rushed out at high speed to live the life of a free bird again, and it was received by two hobbies from its own family only a few minutes later.

Source:
DOF (Dansk Ornitoligisk Forening)
Danmarks Fugle og Natur

* DATSY is a project for endangered and rare breeding birds in Denmark.