Siberian Tit - January 2010 Wallpaper

I took this shot in Lapland in March 2009 on our our annual winter trip to Finland and Norway. I also made some sound recordings on that very same trip - have a listen to their fantastic call:



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Whooper Swans

Its been dawn until dusk winter photography for the past few days with many great opportunities. With the lochs still pretty much frozen, I wanted to get more shots of Whooper Swans and today proved to be the best day yet. The light was once again amazing, but getting the close up shots involved moving some tricky manual exposure work to really bring out - but not burn out - the whites, and get the yellow and black on the bill spot on. Harder than I thought.

Eider Calls

Aren't Eider calls just amazing. Here is a recording of a flock of 30 birds from the harbour with the males displaying to the females...

To Russia with Love...

In March 2008 and 2009 on our annual pho-tour to the Varanger region we noticed - and photographed - a few King Eiders with antenna in the harbour at Batsfjord. After a few e-mails to colleagues in Norway, I learned that these birds were part of a satellite tagging project to try and establish where the Finnmark King Eiders migrated to, after leaving their wintering grounds. The results make very interesting reading and can be viewed here.

Drake King Eider with antenna - Batsfjord, March 2009

Boxing Day

Great light and still icy conditions on 'fresh' lochs - great for reflection photography!

Whoopers on Ice

We finally had a hard frost in the south Mainland and this forced most of the Whooper Swans to Spiggie. The setting was perfect for some really creative photography using the texture of the ice and the light from the dramatic sunset. By over exposing, one could create really 'cold' looking images and as the sun got lower, the deep orange glows stretching across the water made for some nice opportunities with silhouettes. Great stuff.

The location and the lighting - snapped with the G11..

Laplanduil

Laplanduil as the Dutch say - one of my Great Grey Owl images from Finland as seen on the front cover of the latest edition of Dutch Birding.

Black Guillemots ~ Tysties

A few pix of winter-pluamged Black Guillemots from a very enjoyable one-day pho-tour this week. The snow we had overnight will hopefully stay around for a few days!

TW3 6 - 13 December

A great week of weather, but office-based for most of it. Here are a few fresh out of the card from edits today: