A long drive for a swamp

This morning I got up before five and about five thirty I started a two and half hour drive west. I was going to take a look at a swamp. Yes, I know, there is something really seriously wrong with me. Little over 200 km drive to walk around a swamp and then the same drive back again to get home doesn't seem very smart. Especially if it involves getting up early in the morning. I don't think even I would have done it, if I wouldn't have had a meeting set up at a lean-to at the edge of the national park containing the swamp in question.

Now, the meet in question was a special one. I belong to a number of Finnish photoforums, but for the last year or so, have mainly been active in only one of them. It's not much like the others, there are only a few members and all of us have at one point or another just had enough of the other forums. They really are packed with one or all of the following: the techweenies arguing over which camera has the best qualities, (eventhough they never really utilize more than 10% of what their gear could do), the "you gave my picture favourable comments, so I'll say your picture is brilliant" -crowd, "bad reactions to critique" -bunch or "according to this or that book your picture stinks because it doesn't go by the accepted rules of a "good" picture" -comments. Our little group got together on the net and we focus on throwing comments at each other that most people would consider insults, but we all know it's done only because of a twisted sense of humor, with no real insult intended. We also believe that "going by the book" or focusing too much on technical issues takes the fun out of our beloved hobby, photography. There is really no other common factor to our photography other than it has to be fun. Most of the others are not into nature pics the same way I am and I have no interest in taking glampics of models or going to the circuit to take motorsport pictures for example. I knew a couple of this bunch pretty well and we had met up many times, but there were also a couple of actives that I had never met in person, only traded ideas and comments over the net. So, when a meet was set up and I time off from work, I felt that I just had to go.

We met up at the lean-to just after eight in the morning and after having a cup of coffee, we headed down the trail that went around the swamp. We stopped every now and then to take pictures, talked about this and that as we walked along. After our about 10km trek was over, we were back at the lean-to, got a fire going, grilled some sauseges and chatted some more. Then it was time to start the long drive home. Yes, 5 hours driving in one day is not much fun, but I am glad I went. It was fun to meet the chaps behind the nicknames in person and to discover that after all this time, it was like meeting up with old friends. I had a really great day and I hope our plans for another meet sometime in the near future will go as planned.

Here are some of the pictures I took along our little walk-about:

A spring morning at the swamp

I headed out at five in the morning. Just as the sun was rising I was at the end of the dirt road and started to walk towards my hide. At first the going was nice and light, there was either clear ground or snow with a nice icy crust to make walking easy in the forest. Once I got to the swamp, things changed completely. With the exception of a few small shady spots, all the snow and ice on the swamp had melted and there was plenty of water everywhere. Step by step I continued forward, eventhough I kept sinking about knee deep with every step. Along the way I stopped to look and listen at the sights and sounds of spring. A lonely crane was calling out near my route to the hide:
As usual, the crane was rather far away and as I kept moving, eventhough away from the bird, it took to its wings and flew away:
Eventually I arrived at the and as I had suspected, the tiedowns had let go. As the snow and the surface of the swamp had melted, the attachments had come loose. Luckily I had made a backup tiedown to a tiny pine and this had stopped the hide from being flown completely away. Eventhough the tent was lying on its side in the water, looking all battered and beaten, nothing was broken:
I took a few landscape -type pictures, mainly as a memento for myself of how wet everything was this time around:
The pair of swans that were close to the hide had received some company since my last visit:
I loaded the hide up and started to head back. The weight of the hide forced me to take short stops to rest along the way. I used the breaks to take some pictures. On one of my stops some calls from afar caught my attention. It took me some time to locate the source of the sounds, but I finally spotted four cranes making quite some noise between the trees close to the edge of the swamp:
The sun was out and heated the air fast and pulling the hide along in the soft and uneven surface of the swamp got me sweating quickly. Even with the heat of the sun, there were still some spots of terrain that were rather cold:
On my way back to the car the sun had heated the edge of the forrest so much, that I managed to take my first butterfly pictures of the year:
This one was a rather rough trip, but now the hide is at home drying and waiting for coming photography trips to the boonies.

Picnic

It went just as I feared it would, the cranes fooled us. Three photographers sitting around in the "west wing extension" of the hide and the cranes were nowhere to be seen. Or to be precise, we saw them. They flew right past us or then they were out in the distance. A small flock was approaching with intensions of landing close to the hide, but two birds at the edge of the flock caught a glimpse of us and right in the middle of their landing turn called out a warning. This resulted in the entire flock banking hard to the left and flying away. The cranes disappeared behind the small patch of forrest close to the hide.

As a desperate last ditch effort we decided to try and take a look at the other side of the patch of forrest, if the cranes would have landed close enough to the trees for a few pictures from behind the bushes. There were quite a few birds visible on the other side of the forrestpatch. The only problem was that they were resting at the far end of the swamp from us. Disappointed, we were heading back towards the hide and the gear we left behind, when we saw a much larger flock heading towards us. We took a quick sprint of about 60 meters in the swamp, trying to get under the cover of the trees. The cranes flew right past us and landed with the rest of their kind at the furthermost corner of the swamp. As the evening grew darker, we picked up our gear from the hide and headed back to the city.

I'll post a picture of two here tomorrow with a few more thoughts on cranes and photographing them.

Cranes, cranes and ever more cranes

Our photographer meet at the swamp never came about as one by one everybody cancelled. I had reserved the afternoon and evening for being out in the wild, so I decided to head out on my own. I didn't do the walk-about as planned for the meeting, but opted to head straight for the hide instead.

As I was unpacking my gear at the hide, a flock of a few cranes decided head away leaving me quite alone at the swamp. When I had all my gear set up I sat down, had a cup of coffee, ate a few sandwiches and just enjoyed the silence. Then I could hear a few crane calls from far away. Moments later the sound came closer and a flock of about ten cranes landed close to the hide. The cranes were going about their business and calling out every few minutes. As the evening progressed more and more calls sounded as more cranes landed. The cranes came in in mostly small groups but sometimes as a flock of 20 or 30 birds at once. Just before sunset there were so many birds around that the calls seemed to be continuous and coming from every possible direction.

As I was waiting for something to happen, I decided to take a "selfportrait".

I guess it tells something about the nature of my hobby:
I took this one with 70-300/5.6 zoom lens, with the focal length at 200mm. Posted her just as proof that nature photography does not always require those long lenses that cost a fortune:
Small groups like this one kept coming in all thru the evening:
At times the airspace over the hide was rather crowded:
Some groups arrived in nice, neat formations:
Just a pic of a few cranes feeding and one keeping watch:
A crane pic loaded with photographic cliches:
A "feelings pic" from underneath the camonetting:

Preparations

I went out for a quick visit to the swamp this morning. I put up the extension to the hide in preparation for our photographers meeting on saturday. A warm, sunny morning was ideal for a quick walk-about in the boonies. Along the way I managed to take a few snapshots:

A morning walk-about

After being stuck inside for so long, it was great to get out into the wild this morning. I walked about the swamp area without much aim, just looking at the sights, enjoying the peace and quiet and taking a few pictures. I stopped by at the hide to have a snackbreak. The hide was still tightly in place, the camonetting had not come loose and even the rain had stayed outside. I got to spend the morning outside and even managed to get a few pictures for the book project, mainly plants and insects this time, since the fall migration of birds is not on yet. Here are the "blog pictures" of the day: