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

Scandinavian summer (part II)

This week we continue our photo report of the Scandinavian summer with a coverage of the Varanger peninsula. The Varanger peninsula is situated in the utmost north-eastern part of Norway. It is surrounded by the Tana fjord in the west, the Barentsz Sea in the north, and the Varanger fjord in the east. The area is well-known among bird watchers and photographers as the area is home to some spectacular arctic bird species, like gyrfalcon and snowy owl. Also from the viewpoint of landscape photography, the Varanger area is certainly worth a visit. It has a stunning rock coast in the north and the extensive views from the tundra fjells in the central part are breath taking. We spend a few days in the Båtsfjord area, followed by some days in the neighbourhood of Vardø.

The Båtsfjord area: tundra, fjells, and abundant bird life



The fjell landscape in the central part of Varanger during midsummer night. During those nights the light is very special with intense yellow, orange to red tones. The lakes are home to loons and long-tailed ducks.

A complete rainbow remained visible for over an hour during one of our midnight drives through the arctic tundra. I like the two arcs in the picture. The atmosphere was complete with the typical calls of some characteristic arctic bird species.

A territorial golden plover in its biotope.

Lapland bunting, a common resident of the tundra uplands.



Adult ringed plover backlit by the midsummer night sun.

The Vardø area: scenic rock coast at its best

View on the spectacular route towards Hamningberg, an abandoned fishing town along the Barentsz sea. It is like driving through a moon landscape. Don't forget to eat the waffles in Hamningberg. The best in Norway!

The tectonic plates almost rise perpendicular from the earth surface. Every second, the massive stones are beaten by the inevitable surf.

Hopefully you enjoyed the pictures. Questions? Please feel free to contact me on info@ifornature.nl. I would be pleased to help you on your way to Varanger!

Dirk-Jan

Scandinavian summer (part I)

As mentioned in the previous post, the coming weeks there will be a report of our Scandinavian summer holiday in three parts. Today the first part about the brown bears at the Wild Brown Bear lodge in Finland (http://www.wildbrownbear.fi/). After a relaxing boat trip from Rostock to Helsinki and an 8 hours drive to Vartius, 60 km North of Kuhmo, we arrived at the Wild Brown Bear lodge. This comfortable lodge, with excellent food and comfortable rooms, is owned by Ari Saaski. It is situated next to a lake in the middle of the enormous Finnish taiga forest. It is about 2 km from the Russian border and every night the brown bears are crossing the border in search of food. Ari is taking good care of 'his' bears and they like to come back. The hides are situated around a lake in a swamp area surrounded by taiga forest. There are plenty of opportunities for bear photography from forest, swamp, or pool hides. A nice feature is the recently installed bearcam on one of the hides. You want to have a look at the bears in real live .......... www.wildbrownbear.fi/bearcam/. Unfortunately , the bearcam is not active every night.

When we visited the lodge last July for 5 days, the weather was pretty bad. Every night there were at least 6-10 bears active. As I like to take pictures of bears in there natural surrounding the grey overcast skies gave me limitations. However, in post processing I realized that the black and white transformation gave me the feel on the photos that I liked. The cotton grass was flowering abundantly in the swamp areas, which gave some nice white details in the black and white pictures. Here are some examples.

Next week more to come ............. the landscapes and birds of Varanger peninsula Norway.

Have fun,

Dirk-Jan

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