Birdwatchers, Eggsnatchers

Hassan, as you can easily guess by his name, was of Turkish origin. He, his father, his stepmother, his stepbrother as well as his aunt, all moved to the neighboring 5B building a couple of years after our arrival in Tapiola.

Hassan was almost two years older than me. But it didn’t stop us from becoming very good friends almost immediately.

He was a red-haired, freckle-faced packet of uninhibited energy. Hassan was interested in everything the world had to offer and more. At least, that’s the way I felt  back then. There was something in that fellow that enthralled me. He was not the ordinary average guy from some Finnish backwater.

Hassan and his family crammed themselves into a two-room flat that had no kitchen proper, only a tiny kitchenette – and not even a fridge. The only cold storage available was a hole in the wall; the size of it was just about one shelf of a modern refrigerator. The cold hole in our apartment was covered with planks and wallpaper. We had no need for such an ancient way of trying to keep foodstuff from going bad. We were the proud owners of a big, brand new, all-American General Electric. Not only did it keep lemonade cold on a hot summer day, it also had a small deep freeze compartment, sometimes filled with ice-cream bars. Hassan was envious.

The chop

Hassan kept a shop in the front yard away from rain and shine close to a ground floor garage door. He had a chair and a table. Taped on the table’s edge hung a piece of notepaper with the text ”Hassan’s Chop”. The table was covered with all kinds of used and useless objects: toy cars with just one wheel missing, almost straight nails and screws, rusty tools, Shell Corporation baseball caps, torn comics magazines, old weeklies found in the backyard garbage bins. You name it. The garage recess was buzzing with customers. Adults passing the ”chop” on their way home often paid a few pennies for something they didn’t really need.

All the neighborhood kids were drawn to the little shop like flies to an open jam jar by a pinball game designed and built by Hassan himself. The goal was to shoot a small metal ball – using a spring operated flipper – into the top hole on the uneven plywood board. The winning hole was marked by a word in red paint ”Jakpot!” If you managed to do that, you could (almost) freely choose anything from the pile of rubbish covering the table. One shot cost five pennies. The board was tilted in such an angle and the flipper so unreliable that you’d have to drop quite a few five penny coins into the money box – screwed to the side of the infernal machine – to reach the top hole. The lucky winner regularly spent a whole week’s allowance to hit the ”jakpot”. At the closing time, Hassan’s breech pockets were bulging with several marks’ worth of small change. I was envious.

And a big record player

At his home, Hassan had a big console-type phonograph and a nice pile of single records. Our record player had disappeared somewhere in our two moves before finally settling in in Tapiola. Pop music was grabbing a tight hold of my preteen soul and we didn’t own a player or even records. Well, one scratchy single was miraculously saved: ”How much is that doggie in the window” sung with a cloying sweetness by Patti Page… I was envious.

Hassan’s record collection was expanding suspiciously fast. As far as I knew his family had no money to be wasted on such frivolities. Of course, being a born businessman, he invented a money earning scheme with record spinning. It cost ten pennies to listen to the both sides of the latest number one. I thought that was mighty reasonable. After all, the price of a new single was close to seven marks. One day, as we were once again flipping through the small disc bins at the second floor music shop in the local mall, I was able to witness his true style of his record acquisition. In a flash, two hit singles disappeared inside his jacket, tucked nonchalantly under his jeans belt. Without any chance in expression, Hassan continued going through the latest top ten hits. Soon he walked out of the shop whistling softly. He nicked records! I wouldn’t have had the guts – no way. I was envious.

A friend of nature as well

By no means all things that got Hassan’s attention were materialistic. He was also an enthusiastic friend of nature. With a self-made net he skillfully caught butterflies. Hunting moths at night, however, was the real thing. In the warm darkness of an August night, we stretched a bed sheet Hassan had ”borrowed” from home between two birch trees. The sheet was drenched with sugary water and the light from our torches was directed to the shiny white, sticky piece of bed clothing. It didn’t take long before the sheet bathing in the yellow light from our low-powered flashlights was teeming with moths and other flying creatures of the night.

The poor moths we caught were gently forced into a glass jar. Inside the jar was a cotton wad dipped into ether. Hassan had managed to purchase a small bottle of ether at the local pharmacy. The dead butterflies and moths he carefully pinned on a cardboard pad – made by himself – for spreading. Beautifully spread specimen he then fixed on the styrofoam base of a big wooden box with a see-through plastic top. All the kids of the neighborhood were invited to marvel at the collection – after paying a small entrance fee, of course. I was envious.

Birdman

Not only butterflies and moths but also birds were in the focus of his nature enthusiasm. He was a birdman, too. He owned army surplus binoculars made in the Soviet Union and carried in his backpack the Birds of Europe. The Birds of Europe was a real field guide used by serious adult birdwatchers. It had beautiful and detailed hand-painted colour pictures of all the birds found in Europe – pictures of birds from different angles, old birds, young birds, male birds and female birds in their varying plumage of each season. I had Every Boy’s Little Book of Birds. It had one scruffy black and white photo per bird. I was envious.

In those days, in the early 60’s, Tapiola wasn’t exactly packed with buildings. All housing districts were completed only after a lot of thinking and careful planning. This was, after all, the Garden City.

Meadows, wetlands and rubber boots

Outside the main housing districts, large and untouched meadows, wetlands, swamps and coves stretched far away. This was a veritable paradise for nature enthusiasts. Although, we wouldn’t have understood what the word ”nature enthusiast” meant. I wonder if that term even existed? We had long-stemmed rubber boots, ham sandwiches in our backpacks and the long three-month vacation period to wander around in the familiar nearby areas. On bicycles, we could easily reach places further out: Mankkaa, Laajalahti, Hanaholma and sometimes as far as Lauttasaari.

The city dump – a treasure trove

The extra attraction in Mankkaa was the huge city dump. The smell close to it, and especially on it, was shocking. All industry and household waste was hauled directly to the dump. Some type of recycling did take place with construction junk and lumber. But everything else, be it bio, energy, glass, metal or toxic waste, lingered here, all in perfect harmony layer by layer. Enormous flocks of gulls, jackdaws and crows circled above us, then dived down to battle over the best bits. The obnoxious smell indicated that there was no lack of those. We could identify rare predators and scavengers within these tumultuous gatherings. All in all, Mankkaa offered an interesting avian fauna as well as a chance to make ”discoveries” for sale at Hassan’s little front yard shop. Every now and then Hassan’s father tagged along with us. Money didn’t grow on trees…

Dropout lemonade

Laajalahti, with its expanding wetlands and closeness to the sea was another story. The best time for bird watching by far was late autumn when the huge flocks of migrating waterfowl flew over or stopped for a meal before their long journey over the Gulf of Finland. The scene attracted real adult ornithologists too. We received many good hints and valuable bits of advice talking to the professionals. With their help, we were able to spot many rarities. It was a proud moment to underline the name of the recognized bird in your field guide.

In Laajalahti as well as in Mankkaa, you could come across plywood huts housing alcoholic dropouts gone over the edge of welfare society for good.

Sometimes, we visited a couple that we’ve become acquainted with. We chatted and drank hot juice made of orange peels. The host busied himself with white and blue plastic bottle. However, he did not lace our drinks with denatured spirits…

Not a little Honda…

On one autumnal trek we bumped into a colossal discovery. Hastily covered with reeds, half sunk in the swampy ground, lay right in front of us Honda 750. Only with difficulty, two of us managed to lift the big motorcycle on its wheels. It hasn’t been there for a long time. Speckless chrome sparkled in the autumn sunshine and petrol sloshed in the fuel tank. Thankfully, we were not courageous enough to try to crank up the monster. We dragged our valuable catch to the police station in Otaniemi not far away. The policemen said thanks and wrote down our names and contact information. Many weeks later, I heard from my mom that the motorbike was reported stolen. Also, the insurance company would give us a huge reward – 30 marks, if I remember correctly. I’m not sure how Hassan used the money, but I bought the Birds of Europe.

Hanaholma – the seagull island

The Nordic Culture Centre with its library didn’t yet exist in Hanaholma. However, there were many other things to explore: old, abandoned dwellings, half-collapsed huts and moldy, dilapidated store houses. The quickest access to the area was to crawl through a concrete drainage pipe beneath the motorway. We examined all the buildings carefully. All types of ”found” objects disappeared into our pockets and backpacks. I once collected a WW2 gas mask. We even pondered whether to evacuate a wolf fur coat, but quickly came to the conclusion that it might be impossible to drag it through the pipe.

By far, the best feature was the small rocky island very close to the beach. The rock held hundreds of gull and tern nests. The clamour was deafening. In the summertime, when sea water reached its lowest point, it was possible to enter the rock, jumping from stone to stone in our rubber boots.

At this point, Hassan had moved to a more concrete level with his bird watching hobby. He was collecting eggs. In plain language, this meant ransacking bird nests. Little birds’ nests didn’t pose a big problem. You just had to to climb to the top of a tall birch tree. As a rule, careful observation was all you needed to spot nests on the ground. A rock infested by gulls and terns was a challenge of a much greater magnitude. These birds are known to be furious nest defenders when hatching.

We were not aware of this when we jumped from one slippery stone to another to reach the rock and the eggs. I was getting scared with the angry terns swooping down above my head. I stayed behind. Hassan, however, was adamant to expand his bird egg collection with some gull and tern eggs. From nest to nest he dashed, grabbing as many eggs as he could hold in his hands, then rushing away, leapfrogging over the slimy stones trying to get to the shore in one piece.

By then, I had retreated quite far away from the shore scene to the shelter of tall birch trees. When a frenzied tern knocked Hassan’s cap on his eyes, his foot slipped and he fell flat on his bum in the shallow water. Miraculously, none of the eggs cracked. Relieved, we sat down under the trees to admire our swag. Just then I realized that the top of Hassan’s cap was turning red. The raging tern had pecked a two inches long bleeding cut on his head.

Emptying eggs in the garage

The eggs we heroes of the Gull Island smuggled to our garage, where the stage two of the operation  – the emptying of the eggs – was to be carried out. It’s quite a simple thing to do. You need a darning needle to sting a small hole to both ends of the egg. Another needle, a long one, you push inside the egg to break the contents. Then all you need to do is blow and the yucky stuff from inside spills into the sink. Six eggs of the seven Hassan caught, we managed to empty without breaking the shell. The seventh exploded into smithereens smudging my trousers and jacket. Once again, I had some explaining to do for my mum, even when we washed out most of the mess. Hassan was happy. The herring gull egg looked magnificent.

Hassan’s egg collection got fine additions. And although the collection box smelt of rotten eggs, I was envious.

The biggest egg problem

Later that same summer, when my family was spending the last vacation week at the Vekka boarding house in Ritvala, I managed to coax my mum for a rowing trip. Our destination was a seagull nest on the other side of the tip of the cape. I had some time watched the goings-on on the nesting rock and so knew that an eggy treasure was there, waiting to be raided. My mum was needed to give assistance in keeping the boat in place while I reached out from the prow of  to snatch the big object. The still warm egg was bigger than my palm and felt surprisingly heavy. Hassan would be green with envy, when he sees this giant thing.

We headed towards the boarding house shore. After some wrangling I had managed to borrow two needles from my mum. I climbed on the highest rock on the shore to perform the puncturing. If only I had been better aware of the mating and breeding schedules of seagulls, I would have left the egg in the nest. Now I was blowing hard, my face turning red with the effort. Nothing happened. A few more stings with the needle. Another blow. I heard a crackling sound. Out flew a tiny living seagull. There it was lying on the rock catching for breath. I stumbled to the shrubbery to be sick. As soon as I had recovered from the shock and nausea, I went back to see what I had done. I knew that I was not supposed to cause unnecessary suffering to wild animals. I picked up a big rock on the path. Nature’s way had taken care of it. Two crows were flying away fighting over their fresh catch. The egg, to my surprise, had not broken. The outgoing hole was a bit bigger than the ingoing one, but the shell was otherwise intact.

The return to Tapiola

Next week, we returned to Tapiola. I just couldn’t wait for everything to get unpacked. I grabbed the egg-carrying box lined with crumbled newspaper pages and ran to whistle below Hassan’s window. Almost immediately, the familiar redhead swang on the balcony and I could hear rumble on the stairs as he leaped over three steps in one jump holding on the rail for more speed. It didn’t take long to go through the main features of my egg adventure. I opened the treasure chest. The seagull egg was broken into hundreds of small fragments on the bottom of the box. The bumpy ride on the dirt road had obviously been too much for the fragile artefact. Hassan was not envious.

The final chapter

The final sequel was acted out in 1989 in Järvenpää. Next door to our semi-detached was the northernmost Islamic mosque in Europe. I was on my way to the local supermarket on my rusty little Volvo. Driving closer to the mosque, I had to slow down to let the people cross the street. Right in front of me a new Mercedes-Benz swerved onto the side of the road. I had to pull over, when the doors of the big car were flung open. The driver stepped out, looking very familiar. He had a freckled face, framed by red hair and aviator glasses. Hassan! I jumped out. We shook hands and exchanged a few words. I just managed to tell that my wife was expecting our second one. Only then I realized that standing close to me was a raven beauty tapping the asphalt with her high-heeled shoe, smoking a king-size lean cigarette. Hassan introduced me to his wife and his kids pouring out of the back seat of the limousine. In a second, they all disappeared inside the building. The doors were closed.

Thus closed one door left open in my life. We never met again. Envious we certainly were not – neither of us.

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