No Capercaillie

I headed out this morning with a friend of mine. Our aim was to get some capercaillie (a.k.a. caper tailed grouse) pictures. My friend had scouted a good spot for getting pictures, the entire hillside was covered with tracks and while we were waiting for the sun to rise, some capercaillies landed in the trees around us. The nearest one was in a tree no more than 10 meters from us. Unfortunately, the birds obviously had noticed us, since they did not come down from the trees, nor make much sounds. After some time, we decided it was a no win situation for us and headed for home. With a slightly different approach, there are some great photos to be gotten from that location.

The best capercaillie this morning was this one, in a tree on the other side of the clearing. So, so far away:
The capercaillie in the tree right next to us was so hidden by branches, that there was no photo-opportunity there. As the sun rose and the day became brighter, some smaller birds took flight also, some close enough for quick pics:
Eventhough we didn't get the pics we were aiming for, I think this was a good morning outing. The only thing I didn't like was that my feet were cold. I'll have to re-evaluate my footwear for these cold spring mornings.

Stomach trouble

Yesterdays capercaillie celebration caused my stomach to be upset in the morning. The rest of the bunch loaded up into one car and headed off while I stayed at the cabin blocking the sewage system. At around eleven my stomach started to calm down and I decided to pack my gear and head out. The temperature had dropped to -27'C during the night, so I put on a bit more clothing underneath my snow outfit than for previous days. I headed to the same area where we had been on our first day of hunting. First I drove to the end of the dirtroad, turned and came back. Along the way I stopped to take this picture:

As I was putting my camera back in the car a capercaillie took off from a tree behind me and flew over the road and disappeared behind the small clearing right by the road.

I drove a couple of kilometers along the main road to a parking spot. I started to ski along the edges of clearings in the forrest, in the direction I saw the bird fly. Eventhough I used my binoculars often, I did not catch even a glimpse of the bird. Along the way I saw numerous moose and reindeer tracks in the snow. When I arrived at the dirtroad again, the sun was setting and I skied along the main road back to the car.

When I arrived at the cabin, the rest of the crew had already returned. As I was driving back, the cars thermometer showed the outside temperature to be -24'C, but in the bright sunshine it did not seem that cold when I was skiing. Most surprisingly the crust on the snow carried well, and skiing was very light and enjoyable.

In the evening our head chef prepared a well spiced tomato / mincemeat sauce to go with the pasta I cooked. A heavy meal topped off a nice day.

capercaillie

Up at 8 and started the day with a heavy breakfast again. This time we fried some bacon and potatoes on the pan. I think there was some onion tossed in also. After eating, we packed our gear and drove off towards the hunting areas. This time we took the main road in the opposite direction and after a short drive we turned off to a secondary road, which we followed up the side of a rather large hill. We parked along the roadside and hopped on our skis. We skied down a small slope from the road and got to a swamp.

The weather was foggy, visibility was down to minimums, so we decided to light a fire and wait and see if the fog would burn off as the sun came higher. When we finally managed to get the fire going, (I have never in my life seen such a antagonistic fallen spruce) we came to the conclusion that the fog was not going to clear and decided to head off to see what was hidden in the foggy landscape.

We followed the swamps edges and stopped to look at treetops for birds. On one of our stops I looked at one pine a bit longer. I looked and looked, even turned my binoculars to other trees, but I kept coming back to that one tree and one branch just below the top of it. After some time I even asked my partner to take a look at the pine in question. After looking at it long and hard we agreed that the black lump on the branch had to be a bird.

I started to ski towards the patch of forrest nearby, slightly away from the bird. I thought I could approach the bird using the cover from the spruces at the forrestpatchs' edge. My partner remained in place to observe and try to capture the whole thing on video. As I was skiing, I kept taking quick glances at the bird, just waiting to see it flee. After what seemed like an eternity, I got to the cover of the trees and turned to approach the bird. I was aiming for the tip of the treeline protruding towards the tree the bird was sitting at. Just before I reached my destination, I stopped to remove my backpack, rifle and skis. The last meters I approached in a low crouch until I was behind the small spruce I had noticed on my approach. I lay in the snow and ever so slowly moved sideways until I had the bird in sight. I removed the muzzlecover from my rifle and chambered a round. I shifted myself to get a good steady position. For a moment I thought I had blown it and the bird had fled when I lost it from my sight as I tried to find a good position in the snow. Finally everything was good and I took the shot.

After I fired, I saw the bird fall straight down, indicating a perfect hit. A loud "yeah" from the direction where my partner was observing the situation confirmed my observation. After doing a "little hiawatha" -style "captured game dance", I gathered my gear, put on my skis and headed across the clearing towards the bird. I found the capercaillie right underneath the tree.

After gutting the bird, taking a few pictures and a few other compulsory rituals we headed off again. Every now and then the thin crust on the snow even carried us, but for the most part we kept sinking knee deep in the snow, despite our skis. At a small lake between two swamps we discovered that water had risen on top of the ice below the snow. We turned toward dry land immediately, but our skis got wet enough to turn into lumps of ice in a matter of seconds. Wet snow and water freeze solid rather fast at -17'C. Using our knives we scraped the ice off and got our skis back to working condition again and we were able to continue our journey. I took a few quick snapshots when we stopped for a break to have some tea and sandwiches.

We continued skiing from swamp to the next until the sun started to set. Eventualy we came back to the same road along which we had parked our car and skiid along the road back to our startingpoint. In the evening we again had a heavy dinner and did some celebrating also.