This gallery features a week-long exploration of central and eastern Finland just below the Arctic circle that I undertook with six friends. Our main purpose was to see many of the region's bird specialities - especially owls and woodpeckers - but we also targeted some of the special mammals, hoping to see Brown Bear at close quarters and maybe something extra special too... For photographers, camera EXIF data will be added shortly. Click the first image or its legend to enter the gallery. Last updated: 1 June 2008. Click on central thumbnail below to commence the slideshow (10 sec. per image). Click on the base of the slide to reveal the 'slide controllers' for manual control of slide advancement. Let mouse hover over the upper part of the slide to reveal extra image commentary text.