Inside the Circle Day 8 -Homeward Bound

It was with some sadness that I left the Varanger Pennisula and Norway behind as I could have quite happily spent another month there. I decided to take a different route back down in to Finland and followed the course of the mighty River Tana for a while before heading southward. My destination was the accommodation with the feeding station near Kaamanen where I was booked over night before the flight back to the UK the following day. The journey southward was fairly uneventful as the hours passed along with a millions of trees and and hundreds of lakes. I eventually stopped about an hour from the accommodation at a place I had been told might hold a few waders. A beautiful spot with a crystal clear stream where people were periodically stop to fill water containers. I managed to find another Wood Sandpiper which provided some fun but just got too close on occasions although another special moment being in such close proximity to this delicate wader.

By strange coincidence a Wood Sandpiper has appeared on a local pond during it migration south this weekend.

I carried on my journey and arrived at the accommodation. After a quick check-in I was straight around the back with the camera to the feeding station.
A rather scruffy looking Siberian Tit was occasionally appearing and it was good to have one in front of the camera. No doubt its tatty feathers a result of constant trips in and out of its nest hole.

The birds I really wanted to photograph some more were the Pine Grosbeaks. The first of these huge finches, a female, came in with the now characteristic thud on the branch.

At one point five females arrived all at once a wonderful sight.

However, it was the raspberry red male bird I really wanted to see but still no sign of one. After a short lull in activity another thud was heard to announce the arrival of a male.

and then a second one arrived.

What great looking birds they are and a memorable way to end the session at the feeders.

After some food and packing for the two flights home the following day the evening sun broke through and I could not resist going out with the camera for one last time. After a short drive I pulled in at the edge of a large lake and found a pair of Velvet Scoter. This was to be my last photo of the trip of the drake exploding out of the water and taken at 11:30pm!

I think it was at that point that I decided this would not be last trip to Finland and Norway and I am looking forward to some future trips. I guess its now time to roll some credits and give some thanks.

• To Austin Thomas for his company on the trip.
• To Jens for his hospitality at the Pikkuskitsi Guest House in Noway www.pikkuskitsi.no
• To the very accommodating people at the Neljan Tuulen Tupa Motel in Finland
• To Graham Catley, John Dempsey and Hugh Harrop for kindly providing some background info before the trip.

and finally to the Arctic birds for allowing me to share brief, intimate and wonderful moments with them.

On Golden Ponds


I was out by a local pond recently photographing some Coots and Tufted Duck. To get the best from waterfowl I think there are three key considerations, firstly to get down low to the water, to go in the winter when they look at their best and also to carefully select your position in terms of the water colour. You will find the water colour is dictated by reflected bank side features or the sky and so varies from grey to blue and green to gold depending on the site and conditions. On this particular pond I noticed that a yellow / orange shrub was casting a narrow shaft of golden orange water across the lake and so positioned myself accordingly. A coot appeared first and photographed here just on the edge of the golden water area.

I had my eye on a drake Tufted Duck which was preening and slowly drifting towards the target zone. Many birds after preening and bathing will give their wings a flap to shake of excess water. Fortunately this one did it in just the right position.

I was back out with the camera two days ago following reports of a Velvet Scoter on a small pond near Clitheroe. This gave a rare chance to photograph one of these marine ducks which I had not seen before. I awoke to thick fog but a quick look on a local webcam showed the weather at my destination to be clear. The low winter light combined with bank side reflection again offered some opportunities for photos on a golden pond.

The bird was continually diving and surfacing with large freshwater mussels which it would swallow whole.

During the few hours I was there the bird must have consumed about 15 large mussels which makes you wonder firstly what kind of digestive system it must have and secondly why it was still floating! In this photograph the bird is manoeuvring the mussel before swallowing.

I will take this moment to also give a quick overview of the last 12 months as we are rapidly approaching the year end. It has been a relatively productive year with 108 wild bird species photographed including a dozen new species such as Black-necked grebe, Grey phalarope, Whimbrel and Shorelark. This has been despite a good deal of background trauma with the life threatening post-operative condition my partner found herself in earlier in the year and the serious illness and departure of a family member. I have probably spent more time in hospital during these last 12 months than I really care to think about. If this is combined with an extremely heavy work schedule and I am surprised I have managed to photograph anything! It really has been a case of grabbing as many fleeting moments as possible. For 2010 I already have an overseas photographic trip booked that I am really looking forward to and will give some details of that in the New Year.

To finish off I would like to thank all my friends, particularly Steve and Andy for their support during this difficult year, and you the readers for your kind words and taking the time to read the Blog. May I wish you all a very Happy, Peaceful and Prosperous New Year.