This morning the alarm clock went off very early, just before 4 a.m. I was going to a site well known for it's great grey owls. I arrived at the site around 5.30 a.m. and there was already quite a few people there and one of the owls was also there. These incredible great grey owls with their graceful approach and silent wings are very impressing to watch hunting for soles in the meddow. They don't seems to be bothered by the people watching them. They do their thing and land on the old fence posts just couple of meters from where you stand. I spent 3 hours with the owls and managed to get many nice pictures.
The european hare photo session
Hares is generally nocturnal and shy in nature, but they change their behaviour in the spring when they can be seen in broad daylight chasing one another around in the fields. During this spring time frenzy when they have most of their focus on eatch other it's much easier to get close to them and if you lay down on the ground you can get some nice pictures. Hares have a fantastic sense of smell and acute hearing, so make sure you are down wind and keep as low as possible to minimise your outline. Often an army-style crawling is the most effective to get close.
Waiting for the eagles
In the middle of February I did a new visit to the photo hide in Färnebofjärden national park. I and two other photographer arrived to the hide and at about 06.00 am we where ready to photograph some eagles, but it was still dark outside so we have to wait a bit. After waiting for a couple of hours the first ravens appear but still no eagles. After one more hours of waiting suddenly a Golden Eagle just appear from nowhere. The golden eagle stayed for about 30 minutes and we got some nice photos. The rest of the day was just a big wait. There was at least 7 - 8 white tail eagles flying around all day but the was to far away to take pictures and we could hear the call of the goose hawk but we did't see it so we sat there and wait until about 16.30 when we decided we had enough. So it was a lot of waiting, but we get some nice pictures of the Golden Eagle.
The white-throated dippers of Ulva.
This weekend I made a visit to "Ulva kvarn" in Uppsala. Ulva is an old watermill and the river flows down a waterfall and create an perfect habitat with turbulent water for the White-throated Dipper. The dippers arrive in the authum and stays all winter in to spring when the suddenly disappear. This time there was 3 dippers at the site and I photographed them for a cupple of hours and got som nice pictures.
Wolfs at the Russian border
In the end of september I spent 3 nights in a photo hide in eastern Finland right on the Russan border. The goal was to get some pictures of wolfs in authum colors. Wolfs are very shy and are hard to get close to and it takes a lot of patient and when or if they appeare the photo distanse are often quite long. This trip we had good luck with the wolfs but the weather was very bad. Wolfs are active at dawn or dusk and this time of year the dawn or dusk time are very short and because the bad weather and poor light conditions we had about 1 hour to get photos in rather bad light before it gets to dark to take photos. So to get some wolf pictures at all they have to appeare under this hour, and they did! We had also some bears visiting us. Here are some of the pictures.
Fishing ospreys.
went on a Osprey photo session with a company "Birdsafarisweden" last Saturday. Our guide on the trip was Lars-Erik and he has been feeding the ospreys for about 8-9 years now. We went out on the lake mälaren with his boat and it did not take more than a couple of minutes before the first osprey showed up. Lars-Erik feed them fish that they happily dive after close to the boat and some time to close to the boat to get the whole bird in the frame. We spent about 3 hours with the osperys and I get a lot of nice pictures. At the end of the session a white-tail eagle come to visit and catch our last fish and I get some picture of that but it was a bit to far away to get greate pictures.
The osprey, is an amazing raptor to watch and to photograph fishing . But it's not that easy to follow the bird in a dive and holding the Auto Focus point on the bird the entire way down. So sometimes you miss the picture and sometime you nail it. Here are some of the pictures I manage to get this day.
Golden evening light
Yesterday evening I went to a little pond near where I live and I was blessed with a fantastic golden light. The magic light was only there for 15 -20 minutes and the it was gone. I manage to get some nice pictures of a wood sandpiper looking for food and it got real close to me as I was lying on the ground under a camo net.
An evening with the kestrels
I spent an evening photographing a pair of Kestrels earlier this week. The light this evening at the kestrel site was perfect, with the soft sunshine behind me. The kestrels where hunting and the male manage to get a large vole. He land on a fence post by the road with his pray and call for the female and hand over the vole to her. She then flew away with the vole to the nest to feed their chicks. I photographed all this from the car and I was able to sneak up quite close to get some great images.
A rare visitor
Hoopoe is a bird that I have always wanted to see and I realy wanted to get some decent photos of one. In april 2016 I had the opportunity to meet this charismatic bird outside the town of Uppsala. This was a very unusual visit by this species in this part of the country. The hoopoe is native to southern Europe but it happens from time to time that hoopoes visit the southern parts of sweden but rarely as far north as the town of uppsala. This specific bird seems relatively fearless and not to be bothered by photographers. It would happily feed and preen right in front of us. Sucha great bird to see and to photograph!
