Grouse morning

The weather was good for my photo-outing, the temperature had gone just below freezing during the night, creating a icy crust on the snow. The crust carried my skis and sledge nicely as I made my way to the hide. Dawn was just breaking when I got to the hide and the half moon I had admired along the way lost its beautiful red color just moments before I got my camera out:
The rising sun colored everything around me in different shades of purple, red and orange as the morning progressed.
While waiting for the grouses to arrive, I had my usual "hide breakfeast" of tea and sandwiches. It was still a bit dark for photography, but when the lone swan that had been hooting nearby took to its wings, I decided to try a inflight pic against the dark background created by the trees surrounding the swamp:
As the light increased, the grouses started landing around my hide and soon territorial disputes broke out. A quick count gave me approximately 40 males at peak time and a couple of hens dropped by to bring even more heat to the situation. Clashes between males happened in every direction around the hide and at times I had trouble trying to figure out which birds to follow for the best photos. Below are some of the pics I took of the clashes that occured:
When the grouses had had enough and took off, I packed my gear and moved the hide a couple of meters to the side, since the melting snow was creating a flood right next to it. As I was moving the hide, a lone goose flew by. I would not have noticed it at all, had it not honked loudly as it approached me. Thanks to the sound it made, I had plenty of time to grab my camera from my backpack and take a picture of the fly by:
As I was skiing back to my car, I saw my old friend, the osprey that nests at the swamp:
All in all, I am happy with the outcome of my morning outing. I will try to go thru all the pictures I took in the near future, so more picture are to be expected to published soon. I am hoping to take my daughter out for one more "grouse outing" in the next couple of days and then I'll most likely move the hide to another location for the summer. I am hoping the snow will hold for the next few days, since that would make our journey to the hide much more enjoyable, after all, being finns, we love to ski whenever we need to move thru the woods.

One more black grouse

Grouse morning II

The rest of the pictures of a good morning for black grouse.

There is plenty of action in these first pictures of the morning, but unfortunately there was not quite enough light:
The knoll on the right of the first picture seemed to be the place the biggest ones were after. In the end this bird managed to secure it for himself:
Some of the birds from the nearby spots came close at times, but backed off fast when this one flexed a bit. Settling the hierarchy called for some tough looks being exchanged:
As the light increased, I got more of the colors and feeling of the morning into the pictures:
As the morning progressed the hens showed up also:
After the hens had dropped by, the party began to quiet down. Some of the leaving birds flew right over my hide. For a moment I thought this one was going to crash straight in:
Quite a load of pictures for one morning. I'm still looking to go back for one more morning of grouse action before the mating season is done. I'll just have to figure out a way to get there without sinking in too deep.

Grouse morning

Moving the hide paid off. I arrived at the hide about four thirty. The trip over went well, except for the fact that what had a few days earlier been frozen ground was now extremely soft at some places. Noticing the deep and soft places in darkness before sinking in them was quite a task. For a moment I also doubted my navigation skills, since I did not see the hide when expected. Finding a safe path thru the swamp had caused me to judge the distance I had walked a bit wrong and also slightly off course. I managed to get my bearings right quickly enough and got to the hide without taking an unwanted swim. The length of my boots was just barely enough at some points along the way.

The sun began to rise and with the increasing light more and more grouses arrived. The first ones started to arrive well before there was enough light for me to see what was happening, but I could hear them coming. Especially the ones that glided in right over the top of my hide. As the light increased the birds became more and more active and the noise grew louder as about thirty birds started calling out. From time to time the ruffling of feathers and a slight move towards a better knoll would result in a clash. There was so much to action going on that I didn't feel any urgency in taking pictures and could take moments off to eat my sandwiches and just follow what was going on.
A few examples from the morning:
In addition to eating and taking pictures of the grouses, I managed to capture this piece of spring action:
On the way back to my car I just had to take a picture of the first butterfly for this spring.
I got a lot of pictures of the grouses, I'll probably post some more tomorrow.

Skiing in Sweden I

Wake up around 8 in the morning. Our head chef made us an hefty omelet, real "big boys" breakfast. It was so good that I just had to scrape the last little bits off the frying pan after everyone else had gotten their share. The morning turned out to be a beautiful one, with the rising sun painting the sky above the ridgeline and the river behind our cabin in different shades of purple:

While I was admiring the sunrise, I took a quick snapshot of our cabin, mainly as a memento of what our housing looked like:

We paired off and headed out. My partner and I took a short drive and then we were at our area, looking to find a place to park our car along a small dirtroad with high snowbanks on both sides. We even gave the snowbanks a try with a showel, but realized soon enough that showeling would take far too long. We found a good spot to park the car along the main road and skiied along the roadside to the dirtroad. Following the dirtroad we got the edge of the swamp that we had been aiming for.

We skiied along the swamps edges, stopping to look at the treetops thru our binoculars, but there were no birds to be seen. Along the way we stopped to light a fire, cook some sausages and have a cup of tea. As we were circling back towards the road and our car, the wind picked up. We decided to follow a snowmobile trail back to the road.

We drove back to the cabin where the rest of the crew had just arrived from their days skiing. In the evening our head chef made some garlic potatoes and sauce to go with the steaks I as the "assistant chef" cooked. I think I kept the steaks on the pan a moment too long, the order was for them to be medium but they were more in the line of medium+. Sometimes things just don't go right,especially when you think you know how things should be done. The head chefs sauce saved the day and with some good red the meal ended up being excellent.

Weather for the day? -2'C in the morning, heating up to 0 during the day with clear skies.

Oh, yes, almost forgot. We did see one bird during the day. There was a female grouse feeding at the top of a tree next to the main road as we parked our car.