So, I had spent two days driving and one day sitting in a small hut. All on all, I was very happy. Although Bob had done his best disappearing act, I still had nice pictures. As I mentioned in the last post, I had decided to stay until sundown to see if either Bob would come back, or I'd get some nice sunset shots. Sadly, the sunset was covered by clouds, so that didn't happen. I did get a nice series of eating shots of the Siberian Jay:
Happy with the day, as the sun set, I packed up everything and started walking down the hill. I had booked a nice hotel for the evening so I didn't have to hurry anywhere. The next day, I had another long drive ahead of me. This time, I was going to Pietarsaari (Jakobstad) for a job thing. My team had a villa booked on the coast where we had some serious workshopping to be done.
No rest for the weary.
Unfortunately I didn't really see much to photograph on the way, so no pictures of that. But eventually I arrived at the local train station, picked up some of my colleagues, and headed for the villa. Turns out, the villa was at an amazing location, right on the beach. There were also quite a few birds flying around...
The first day, night and morning were spent working and relaxing. In the morning, one of the guys told me that I should have woken up earlier, to get some pics of all the swans flying just next to the villa. I spent most of that day looking up at the sky, much to the slight irritation of my colleagues ;)
There were indeed quite a few swans around, and a surprise guest; a White-Tailed Eagle. During the day, it taunted me four or five times, doing big swoops half a kilometer away, but never coming closer. I got some pictures, but they weren't really usable. So I decided to get up early and see if I could catch it the next day. And boy, did I.
Hi there!
After waking up at 7am, I was walking on the beach, tracking the various birds in the area (crows, swans, ducks, tits and a pair of Greenfinch). I was looking mainly north, where most of the bigger birds were coming from. For some reason, I decided to turn and look south instead, and there it was. Not even 50 meters away, coming in low over the beach, was the eagle. I didn't even think, I just lifted my camera and started snapping. Unfortunately I had my setting slightly wrong because I had been photographing the finch, but I still got about 20 shots when the eagle slowly flew over me.
It pays to be prepared, but sometimes it's just pure luck. I still had an hour or so before my colleagues would get up, so I continued shooting.
Blue Tit looking at some prime real estate.
Greenfinch looking sceptically at me.
Whooper Swan doing a fly-by.
The race is on!
During the day I also saw something a bit weird; a lonely Crane flying among seagulls, shouting constantly. It had apparently lost track of its friends, and was trying to call to them. It was flying quite high, so my pictures didn't end up being very good:
We still had a full day and night at the villa, but we did some excursions that day, so no more bird photos. We got back just after sunset, and I decided to take one last picture from the trip.
Ice on the sea, temperature less than 5 degrees Centigrade. But the tub was hot, so it was fine. Time for some serious workshopping.
The trip back was uneventful, save for the rain and hale that pour down. I'd had a very good five days; visiting new places, seeing new bird species (and a weasel!), and best of all, 1500 images to remind me of the experience. I just relaxed, and drove homeward. The plan was to process the pictures during the weekend, but I was hooked... I wasn't spending the weekend cooped up inside.
Oh, hi!