Fall(en) bears in Finland

Dear friends,

Fall is taking our country step by step. Brown, orange, yellow, and red tones are dominating our landscapes. Lots of mushrooms, migrating birds ..... an interesting period full of photographic motives. Before we post some pictures of our current fall adventures, I'd like to post some older news. About 4 weeks ago I spend a few days together with Bendiks Westerink (http://www.bendiks.nl/) in the Wild Brown Bear lodge. Our goal was clear. We liked to take pictures of brown bears in fall colours. Some beautiful pictures were already made in our minds. Fall colours, fog, bears, sphere ......... you know. Our timing was right. After we arrived at Helsinki airport it was clear that fall had arrived in Finland. The more we drove to the north, the more intense the colours became. In particular the birch trees were coloured intensely yellow! What could go wrong? After arriving at the lodge at about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, we had a quick meal and departed full of expectations for our first bear night.

Bendiks waiting for the things to come

When I visited this place last July there were at least 6 individual bears each night and they came already early in the evening. But what happened to the bears in the meantime? The hours passed and dusk came ...... no bears. Our first bear night wasn't successful. To make a long story short on the last of our three nights we only saw one bear in twilight. Was it the hunting season? Was it the abundant presence of natural food? I don't know ..... but there is one thing I learned ..... these brown bears are wild creatures that are not listening to the ambitious dreams of wildlife photographers. Let's keep it like this!

Didn't we take any pictures? Sure we did. A cooperative red fox, a common teal, and of course the beautiful fall colours in the land of the thousand lakes.

Cheers,

Dirk-Jan

Scandinavian summer (epilogue)

Dear all,

Autumn is on our doorstep! The photographic energy is starting to run through our veins as the coming weeks are one of the most photogenic period of the year. I'd like to complete the coverage of our summer holiday with this episode. After spending more than a week on the Varanger peninsula (see previous post), we visited Martinselkonen Wilds Center in the neighbourhood of Suomussalmi Finland. This place is well-known for its large brown bear population. We came for bears, and we indeed got plenty of them. Sometimes I had the feeling that the whole setting and ambiance wasn't very wild and natural. On one occasion, I even counted 10 individual bears eating in front of my hide in an area that wasn't much larger than 100 by 100 meters. The counterside of such conditions is that it causes a lot of interactions between the bears. Excellent conditions for action photography! There are three photographic opportunities at Martinselkonen Wilds Center: forest hides, swamp hides, and hides next to a pond. The choice wasn't very difficult as we had booked three nights at the lodge.

The first night was spend in one of the three swamp hides. There had been heavy rains during the previous days and the swamp was really a swamp. Luckely, the Wellington boots were with me! Luck was on my side as I saw my first brown bear cubs. Lovely, cute animals with a softening, innocent look in their eyes. They were constantly alert for the large males resulting in some 'hide and seek' and 'run for your life'-type of photos.

The second night was spend in one of the two forest hides. My first impression was not very positive. The small hide wasn't hygienic. It smelled horrible like a bad mixture of moulds and urine. Time to open the small windows! I had to choose between several bad options. Mosquitos, hungry bears within a meter from the hide, or that irritating smell. While I was awake I preferred the open windows. The forest hide was situated in an area that obviously suffered by the dense bear population. The ground vegetation was demolished and mainly gone. I was pleased to get out of the hide the next morning, luckily with some interesting pictures.

The last night in the pond hide more than compensated for my disappointing forest experience. That evening, the weather and light conditions were excellent. The temperature was about 20-25 degrees Celcius, which turned the brown bears into enthusiastic swimmers. After 6 hours of continuous concentration, excellent wildlife photography, and 16 GB of CF cards, I decided to call it the day. Sweet dreams about an unforgetable summer holiday in Finland and Norway!

I hope you enjoyed the stories and, of course, the pictures. Let the autumn colours come!


Cheers,
Dirk-Jan