More Wildlife in Sweden

It’s spring in Sweden, and part of what that means in more wildlife!  Not only flies and gnats and generally annoying creatures such as that, but also larger wildlife.  I’d only seen two frogs as of Monday, however, so I decided to go back to the road with the “grodor på väg” (frogs on the road) sign, and look for more.  Alas, I found no more frogs, so I’m still left with only two frog sightings, both of which were photographed, but both of which had atrocious lighting conditions and no flash.  There’s still time for additional frog sightings, though.
Instead, I found deer!  I went back to where I’d taken a night photograph with a lake and the moon the last time, and explored around there.  There was no longer a lake there, but the ‘hay bales’ that I’d seen earlier were still there.  The lake probably is a seasonal phenomenon, and now that it’s been a long time since snow melt, no longer existed.

The ‘hay bales’ were actually a sort of plant.  Intrigued, I went down into one of the lake beds and investigated more closely.

I’m not really sure what they are.  I’d be curious to know more about them; perhaps they’re a part of Swedish flora that doesn’t have an equivalent in the U.S.?  Or perhaps I just haven’t been in the right part of the U.S. to find them.
There was an actual lake across the road from where I’d taken the photograph last month, as well as some very tall grasses.  A large area of the ground was covered with several inches of these grasses, apparently from years past, as well as with our ‘hay bales’.

I made my way along the right side of the lake, with some help from the plants to avoid slipping into the lake.  I then went up the embankment, and found myself on a dirt path alongside a field.  I didn’t go much further, when I looked to myself and found that I was being watched.  As the deer was looking straight at my, at first I couldn’t tell if it was a deer.  But I soon realized it was, and took several photographs to document its presence.  As I hadn’t brought a proper camera, I lacked zoom abilities, and thus the deer is rather small in the photos.  But you can tell its a deer.

Right near the center of the photo!  There were actually two deer; the other is just to the right of the trunk of the tree, and facing away.  I didn’t realize the second one was there until a couple minutes after I realized the first one was a deer, thanks to it being camouflaged by the trees.  The deer, once they determined I was merely an observer, didn’t seem to mind me too much, and continued about their routine, as seen above.
And all this way within sight of Flogsta!

On my way back, I saw a sign that said that the area where I had seen the deer was part of a nature reserve.  Appropriate.
More exotic than the deer, however, was what I had seen the week before on my way back from Swedish class – on Wednesday the 4th.  On that day I was taking my standard suburban route back, which I’ve traversed dozens of times.  It was about the same time of evening – roundabouts 8:00.  And, as I’m approaching the apartments prior to Flogsta, what runs across the path a few hundred feet in front of me but a wild boar!  At first I couldn’t believe it actually was one, and was thinking, “Is this actually a wild boar or is my mind playing tricks on me?”  Then I started wondering what wild boars acted like around humans when not provoked, as I knew that they did have tusks that could be damaging if they weren’t happy.  But, though it paused long enough for me to get a good look at it, it continued on its way to wherever it was going, and ignored the pedestrians, who also seemed to ignore it.
Well, except one man’s dog.  The dog thought it a good idea to bark at the boar, and the dog’s owner, perhaps not realizing that his dog was barking at a boar, let the dog lead him off the path a bit in the direction the boar had gone.  By this time I was watching from across the street from where the boar had crossed the path, by the apartments.  Fortunately, the boar seems to have kept going past where it disappeared from sight, and either didn’t hear the dog or ignored it.  The dog seemed content that the boar wasn’t in the area, too, so no conflagration occurred.
In my surprise that it actually was a boar, I did not react quickly enough to photograph it, but after double-checking with some pictures of documented boars I’ve concluded that it was indeed a boar and not a very shaggy dog or a rather small yak.  And Swedish Wikipedia indicates that wild boar may indeed live this far north in Sweden.
What other potentially dangerous animals live in Sweden?  Well, there’s bears, but they aren’t supposed to be in this area.  And there may be wolves in parts of Sweden here, but again probably not in Uppsala.  Foxes are also a possibility.  But, despite the presence of wild boar, I’m still probably pretty safe in Uppsala.