Gray morning and camera shy grouses

I haven't had time to do much (more like any) photography this spring. Today was exceptional in the sense that I managed to go out and even had a friend along. Usually I'm out there alone. It's nice to have someone tag along every now and then, the hours spent alone in the hide can be rather lonesome at times. If nothing else, it's nice to have someone to talk to while waiting for something to happen.

I woke up at 2:30, after sleeping for about three hours. For some reason I did not get to sleep early as I had planned. I made tea for my thermos and stuffed my sandwichbox in my backpack that I had loaded with my gear the previous evening. I turned on the coffee machine to get a few cups of much needed fuel into my system. Just after three my friend Jukka pulled up. Jukkas photocompany pages can be found here. (Finnish only, sorry) We loaded our gear into my car and headed for the swamp. I parked the car at my usual spot and we headed to my hide that I had set up the previous afternoon. After skiing for half an hour in ankle deep slush, we arrived at the hide. It was still pitch dark when we got ourselves and our gear stuffed inside.

As the sun rose, the light increased, but with a low overcast, everything was colored in dull gray tones. To make matters worse, the grouses that we had come to photograph were well too aware of my hide. The first few birds landed at their usual spot right infront of us, but there wasn't enough light for good pictures. A couple of them started to boast at each other and even ruffled each others feathers a bit. They also kept looking towards the hide almost all the time and after spotting some movement of our camera lenses, the whole flock moved further away. It would have been much better if I could have taken the hide out a few days earlier and let the birds get used to it before going out, but I was so busy around the house with family stuff that it just could not be done. In any case, the low hanging cloudlayer made sure that no real nice color tones would be captured today.

Here is a quick sample of this mornings images:

Jukka wrote his views of our trip (still in Finnish) with some nice pictures here. For our next outing I'll get us a larger hide. My little tent was made accommodate just me and my gear and with two photographers, it was cramped to the limit. It fealt great to crawl out and be able to strech my legs and back.

Last grouse pictures for this spring

When the alarm chimed in the middle of the night, I really didn't feel like going. Somehow it just didn't feel nice. After about 15 minutes of struggling I got out of bed and made my way to the kitchen to put the coffee on. While the coffee was dripping, I had time to get dressed and take the dogs out. After having my requisite two (large) mugs of coffee, I felt awake enough to load my gear in the car and head out.

The dirtroad was barely driveable, the warm weather we had for the last couple of days had softened the surface in some places, and to make matters worse, a tractortrailer hauling lumber or some other large vehicle had left its tracks in the surface of the road. In my car, I had to be carefull not to get stuck. I really need to get that 4x4 I've been looking for for some time now..

At the end of the road I put on my skis and headed towards the hide. The problems started as soon as I got moving. The path I normaly use was pretty much bare, the snow had melted away. The young forest next to the path is so tight with saplings that trying to get thru it with a sled in tow was not a good option. Luckily next to the path was a narrow strip of snowcovered ground that I could use to move on, though much slower than I am used to. At the edge of the swamp I ran into the next problem. The border between the forest and the swamp was completely bare, and even the ice under the snow had melted. I took my skis off and after some scouting, managed to find a route accross that was shallow enough for my boots. The sledge floated well and came accross almost dry, even with the weight of my gear on it. At this point, I was happy I decided not to take my daughter Nea out for photography on sunday as there is no way she would have made it accross without getting her feet wet. We would have had to turn around at the edge of the swamp or suffered freezing temperatures with wet clothing at the hide. Either way, the joy of a good naturephotography outing would have been far from what we would have been going thru.

After making my way thru the edge area, the going became really easy. The swamp was covered in a good layer of ice, with a few centimeters of ice crusted snow on top, making skiing almost effortless. Even the sled seemed to glide towards the hide almost on its own. When I got the hide, my problems continued. The lines holding the hide in place had given and the wind had blown my hide over, breaking the other arch of the tent. I managed to fix the arch with some line and got the hide set up again.

I got in, set up my gear and once again got to watch a beatifull sunrise:
As the light increased, the grouses started to arrive:
Last time around, there were 40 or so birds about, this time I counted only twenty. As the birds kept arriving, disputes over the best spots broke out:
I managed to get some decent pictures of the clashes, I will post them as soon as I have managed to go thru all of the mornings pictures. A lot of the pictures are blurres, because the clashes happened mainly as the birds arrived just around sunrise and there was simply not enough light to stop the movement when taking the pictures.

When the birds had sorted their pecking order out, I got to take some nice pictures of single birds, as their positioning and the light matched up well:
When the grouses were done and had left, I took down the hide and packed it on the sledge and started skiing back to my car:
I took a slight detour and dropped the bottom part of the hide at a different location in anticipation of the coming summer. The tent part of the hide I took home with me to dry it and fix the parts broken by the wind.

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.

Hide in place

A sunny spring day made me head out to the wild after a long break. With the temperature just below freezing, there was a nice crust layer on the snow that carried my skis well. Even with a sledge in tow skiing was light and enjoyable.

I located a lonely birch tree at the swamp and dug up the bottom part of my hide and loaded the boards on the sledge:
I pulled the sledge to the same spot I have used for the last couple of springs, right were the black grouses have their mating season shows. To secure the hide in place, I made some "dead men" from branches and buried them under the snow:
When I was done, this is what the hide looked like:
Judging by the tracks in the snow, the hide is in a good place, there are tracks of grouses clashing just a few meters from the hide:
On the way back to the car, I spotted these tracks in the snow:
I won't tell who / what made the tracks just yet. Anybody want to take a guess?

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.

A few drops of spring

The snow is melting, spring must be here:

More black grouse pictures

I went thru the pictures of my "grouse morning". Quite a load of pictures, considering it was only one morning, but in my opinion, it is better to keep shooting when there is some action. The following pictures should give some idea as to how violent the confrontations between the birds were:
I could hear the thumps and slaps even in my hide as the birds attacked each other. It is a shame I can't add sound to the pictures. Maybe I should shoot a video of this sometime?

Morning grouses, again

Yes. I must be crazy. The alarmclock went off at 2 am. I had slept for about three hours. I turned the coffeepercolator on, to get the caffeine dose my body needed and took the younger dog out for a few minutes. When I got back inside, the coffee was ready and as I sipped my morning cup, I made some tea for my thermos that I was taking with me for the mornings outing. I put the thermos and some sandwiches in my backpack along with the rest of my gear and loaded the whole thing in the car.

A little after three I was at the end of the dirtroad and started skiing towards my hide. After the first hundred meters I got a harsh reminder of how important it is to check EVERYTHING, even for a short outing. This time it was the bind on my ski that broke. I managed a quick fix to it in the middle of the forest. (Detailed description of what happend will be posted later)

As I got closer to the hide, things got rather wet. There was a thin layer of snow on top a thick layer of wet slush and water on top some ice at the swamp. At some places I was lucky that my boots were long enough. The hide had stayed dry, but was surrounded on three sides by very deep water. All I could do was hope that the whole thing would not slide off the small mound it was sitting on.

I got into the hide and put on warm clothing and set up my gear. Then I had nothing to do but wait and have some tea and sandwiches. It was 4:35 am. that I had everything set up. Since I had nothing better to do, I put a few short updates for the folks at home on how things are going thru FaceBook on my mobile.

As the sun began to rise, there was enough light that I could see out of the hide. The sunrise was not as clear as I had hoped for, the thin layer of clouds gave the sunrise a gray/bluish tone instead of the yellow or orange that I wanted:
I was feeling a bit cold and maybe that is why I was also somewhat frustrated. I was starting to wonder if this would be one more entry in the long line of "I went but got no pictures" trips. Just as there was enough light to start seriously thinking of taking pictures a few grouses and some lapwings landed close to the hide:
The grouses made a lot of noise and strutted around quite a bit, but no real confrontations took place. The pecking order seemed to be clear to everyone:
All of a sudden, all the birds flew away. I spotted them landing several hundreds of meters from the hide. I was thinking of packing my gear and heading for home, when more and more grouses started landing, until there were about twenty birds around my hide. Soon lapwings arrived in great numbers also:
This second set of grouses was really active and skirmishes erupted all the time as the birds fought for the best spots:
After the grouses had had enough, the "clean up crew" arrived and seemed to be very interested in the spots where the toughest battles had been fought:
I'll post more pictures of the morning when I have had a chance to look thru all of the pictures I took.