LA to Sweden: Animals 🐗 🇸🇪

Having moved to Stockholm, Sweden 18 months ago, I have seen many strange animals such as moose, reindeer, red squirrels, yellow ladybugs, enormous rabbits, and even a rhinoceros beetle. I am sure that some of these exist in the U.S. but I have not seen them. After showing the two insects, I will discuss some of these others, taking them one by one. Most of the following photos I have taken myself. The ones that I have not taken myself should be very obvious. :)

Visiting Caroline’s parents house for the first time, it was not unlike my own parent’s neighborhood, which is also in a rural area outside of a city. Having thought I saw a stray dog, about medium sized, I soon observed that it was moving like a rabbit. Although huge hares exist in the U.S., I am unaccustomed to seeing them. It was about 8 times bigger than the rabbits in my parent’s neighborhood. I couldn’t believe how big it was, and asked if people hunt them for meat. I was told that they do, primarily in the North of Sweden.

Even the squirrels look different here. They are an auburn red, with pointed ears! I have to say that in my opinion, they look cuter than American squirrels.

Caroline and I visited the North of Sweden in a city called Kiruna. This is where we saw the Northern lights, which was one of the best experiences of my life. I will address this phenomenon and memory in a subsequent posting. This is also where I saw my first Reindeer! The horns are so enormous and so beautifully intricate that they almost look fake.

In the wild forest, I saw three black snakes, one of which was a water snake! It was amazing to watch it submerge to hide from me, and then slither away on the surface of the water.

I have waited for more than a year to see a moose, and I finally did a few months ago! These get bigger than the biggest horse, to an almost elephantine status! Sadly, the one I saw was small. The redeeming feature of this encounter was that it had big antlers.

I also saw a lot of deer, one of which was at least 3 times the size of Southern California deer. This is while I was in a forest alone, and it terrified me. I was seriously afraid that it would charge me, but it scampered off at an incredible speed.

Lastly, Skansen is a zoo in Stockholm that has many of Sweden’s native animals such as bears, lynx (bobcats), wolves, boars, owls, and other cool animals pictured below.

I have also seen dozens of beautiful swans almost every day. The species is the Whooper Swan, which is one of the heaviest flying birds. They are very friendly and we feed them old bread. Caroline can be seen below doing just that.

The only other animal I am still waiting to see here is a wild boar!