Still alive?

Dear all,

It has been a long time since my last post, actually it has been too long. During the last months I regularly got questions of you. Where are your pictures? What happened? Too busy? It's not that I didn't take any picture in the last months, although the summer months aren't the most interesting ones according to my taste. Behind the scene I've been working on a major update of the website http://www.ifornature.nl/. Based on feedback of the visitors there are significant changes on the way. I will inform you when the updated website is online. After archiving the pictures of last spring, I'm currently working on the summer photos.

In July, we spend a terrific holiday in Finland and Norway. We made a trip quite similar to the one we made last year, but it felt completely different .... the people were more 'alive', the weather was better, the touristic centra were open, .... actually, it felt like we celebrated two springs this year. The first in April/May in Holland and another one during the Scandinavian summer. In the coming weeks I will blog a travel report in three chapters. The first one will be on the brown bears at the Wild Brown Bear lodge, the second about the beautiful coastline and birds of Varanger peninsula, and the last chapter will be about the bears of Martinselkonen Wilds Centre. As an appetizer for the first chapter a brown bear in black and white. More to come..........

Happy shooting,

Dirk-Jan

Black grouses in Finland (III)

Dear friends,

As promised, I'm posting the last part of the Finland story. This one is about the other bird species. At the lekking sites of the black grouses, several other species were present. The cranes had just returned from their wintering grounds. They stayed far away from our hides, but their territorial calls added a special accent during the early morning hours. At one occasion a couple of whooper swans came flying over our hides with loud calls. Luck was on our side as they decided to land just about 50 meters in front of our hides. After some grooming they flew away and I managed to get sharp pictures of their take off.



After the black grouse sessions, we spend the rest of the day to search for other bird species. You can imagine that we also needed some rest in the afternoon after getting up at 2.30. Our Finnature guide Ari Latja drove us along the hotspots in the Oulu region. We observed groups of cranes and whooper swans on the fields, capercaillie and crossbills in the forest, as well as a group of three moose. Finland is well-known for its owls and woodpeckers. A resident black woodpecker gave a nice show and we were lucky that Ari found the largest and the smallest member of the Finnish owl family, the magnificant great grey owl as well as the pygmy owl. Both gave us unforgetable moments.

Thanks for visiting this site. Hope to see you back!

Dirk-Jan

Black grouses in Finland (II)

Dear friends,

As promised in the last post, the next one would deal with backlight photography of the black grouses in Finland. I'm really font of this type of photography as it can add a special 'dreamy' atmosphere. I was glad that we also got the opportunity for backlight photography in Finland. At one of the two places visited, the grouses were lekking around the hides. From both sides of the hide we had opportunities to shoot. You can imagine which side was my favourite. Two examples of backlight shots are attached to this post. The first is a calling male. Everytime it was calling its breath condensed into a small plume of steam because of the cold. The second picture is an example of an excited male. They make small vertical flights of about 1 to 2 meters high in order to obtain the attention of the females when these are sitting on or flighing over the lekking arena.

Some thoughts about the exposure of backlight shots. I like to underexpose my backlight photos as it gives a more intense sphere. On the other hand, I like to keep some detail in the photographic subject. In this case it's a black bird, which is certainly not the easiest one. An exposure compensation of -1,7 EV worked best for my taste.

Hope you like the pictures. The other bird species of the Finland trip will follow next week.

See you!

Dirk-Jan

Black grouses in Finland (I)

Dear friends,

Last week we spend a terrific week in Finland. We (Martine and Jacky Launoy, Erik van Velden, Chris van Rijswijk, and me) joined Han Bouwmeester for a try-out journey to Oulu, Finland. Our goal was to photograph lekking black grouses. A wildlife experience of the first class in a amazing setting with beautiful weather. We had to wake up every night at around 2.30 in order to be on time inside of our hides at the lekking site. The hides were situated in two different swamps in the middle of a taiga forest. Hides with chairs were available, as well as hides with matresses for low angle shots. I preferred the later ones because the contact with the birds was most intense.

walking to the lekking side at night

it's me laying in the hide (thanx Han)

Every morning we were treated with about 10 lekking males around our hides. The sound and the atmosphere that they produce is hard to describe. The males arrived about an hour before sunrise. It's a mystery to me why they always come to the same area of a few square hundred meters within a swamp of several kilometers wide. I constantly had the impression of being a spectator in a medieval theatre. The males are walking around in their own territories of a few square meter while making strange hissing and bubbling sounds. Once in a while they have to defend their own territories against intruders with fights and impressing behaviour. Their hormones got even more activated when the females showed themselves in the arena.

impressing behaviour

fighting for the territories

posing female

There is more to come in the coming two weeks. Later this week I will post some backlight pictures of the grouses. The other birds of this Finland trip will follow next week. Hope you liked it so far. I'm looking forward to see you back on the blog and please feel free to leave your reaction/feedback.

Dirk-Jan

Black grouses revisited

Dear all,

Tomorrow I will leave for 6 days to Finland with a group of 6 photographers. Our main target is to take pictures of lekking black grouses in the early mornings. The rest of our time we will spend on owls, woodpeckers, and perhaps we find a capercaillie or hazel grouse. Lets see what this trip will bring. The stuff is packed and I am ready for it. Sure some pictures will follow next week. Via the following link you will find detailed information about the program:

http://www.finnature.fi/black_grouse_lek_photography_in_oulu.html .

See you,
Dirk-Jan

Hawfinches!

A dream species in front of the forest hide. He, the male hawfinch, appeared on saturday afternoon only for a few minutes. Few opportunities for photos but none of them were completely satisfactory to me. Would he return? Was there a female as well? Are they breeding in the neighbourhood? Was this only migration? Lots of questions...........

I spend three hours in the hide on sunday together with my family. Unfortunately, no hawfinches. Another attempt on monday and yes ...... he returned. This time he brought his female as well. They came back together twice within a few hours. The light was excellent during their second visit, which last for about 15 minutes. Lots of pictures, some of them are shown below. Hopefully they stay with me for the coming breeding season. Let's see. I can never get enough of such beautiful birds.

Best regards,

Dirk-Jan

First April Fools' Day

Last friday afternoon, I found an 'official' letter at the doorstep of my photography hide. The sender of the letter was the municipal of Oldebroek, where the hide is located. The bottomline of the letter was that I owned a recreation object on their soil. The size of the parcel was estimated to be 130 square meters. As a result I had to pay them the so-called WOZ tax of 382 euro's. This kind of tax needs to be paid by house owners in the Netherlands. As the letter was dated on the 1st of April it was clearly a joke. But now I had to find the offenders. That wasn't easy. Was it my family, friends, or perhaps the manager of the forest? It cost me several days to unravel the mistery. Today the pieces fell together. My dear colleagues were behind this first of Aprils' joke.

Thanks guys, it was great fun!

Dirk-Jan