Brown Bears in Finland

Brown Bear Approaching at 4am

It’s well over a year ago that we started to look into the idea of photographing Brown Bears for the first time. We reasoned there were three main possibilities open to us; Alaska, Romania and Finland.

Being retired, it was soon apparent that Alaska was out and with it the chance to get the Salmon run, unless a lottery win comes our way. Either of the other two options were suitable and we finally plumped for Finland. We had been there before on a winter activities holiday and liked the country itself and the people we met, so we felt comfortable with our choice.

Next it was a case of choosing the company we travelled with, based mainly on the availability of dates that suited us and by early June, everything was booked.

Fast forward twelve months and we were on a flight from Heathrow to Helsinki, with an onward flight to Kajaani booked. We had around a 4-hour layover in Helsinki and decided on a baguette for lunch. At over £8.50, it was probably the most expensive ever and no better than any I’d tasted before. Welcome to Finland.

What followed was rather bizarre. The gate for the onward flight was displayed when we arrived in the terminal and so after lunch we made our way there. First mistake, there was no seating. Then as we approached boarding time the gate changed and everyone who had been standing around marched off to the new gate. This happened a further three times before we finally got to the correct gate.

Arriving in Kajaani we met up with our guides for the trip and two of the other guests. The two further guests had been delayed on their flights into Helsinki and were to arrive much later.

Given the time of year, the way this trip works is for guests to settle into a hide (there are 28 to choose from) at 5pm and remain there until 7am next day. Hides are equipped with bunks and toilets, but as it never really got dark at night, the bunks didn’t get too much use.

The first night was spent in the lodge due to the late arrival and the following day was taken up by familiarisation with the lodge and how the trip would work, together with some photography around the lodge beside a beautiful lake. Only downside was the number of mosquitos, but we were prepared for them.

At 4pm we took dinner and finally it was time to walk out to the hides. It did seem bizarre that we were given packed lunches to eat during the night, but it worked well. By 5:30pm we were set up and waiting for the action to begin.

Our first visitor was a Wolverine at around 10:30pm followed by a pair of Bear cubs around 30 minutes later, one of whom was nearly white rather than brown. Although we’d had a 5-hour wait, we were quite encouraged and ready for more, but that was it and by 7am next day, nothing else had shown. Rose and I had taken it in turns to sleep for a couple of hours during the night, but after breakfast at 7:30am, it was time to crash out.

We had until 1:30pm, when our guides had arranged various activities each day such as tuition on many and varied photographic subjects. We had selected a different hide for the second night, but that turned out to be even worse. A Common Sandpiper around 7pm and a Wolf adorned with a hideous radio collar nearer 10pm and again just after midnight was all we saw.

For our third night we changed to a hide that overlooked water with a rocky outcrop on the other side. This had to be a good spot, but our hopes were dashed yet again. The highlight of the whole night was a pair of male Goldeneye that spent many hours on the water, but otherwise was boring. OK, we both got some sleep, still taking it in turns to keep watch, but it wasn’t what we came for. Personally, I spent some time getting all arty shooting reflections of the trees in the water, out-of-focus pictures of the tree trunks and the mist on the water around ‘dawn’.

Back at the lodge for breakfast, the lack of bears was the only topic of conversation. One guy in another group commented that he had spent four nights in hides and had yet to see anything. Even our guides were getting twitchy.

Things looked up a little on night four when an adult male Bear appeared at about 11:15pm for a quarter of an hour, at last there were some large bears around. Naturally, we weren’t satisfied though, it was a cloudy evening and by that time the sun would be just below the horizon anyway. Crank up the ISO to 12800 and see what we get, to be honest not much. We were lucky in one respect though, people in other hides didn’t see this Bear or anything else for that matter.

Night five was our last and we went back to one of our previous hides. This time we had nothing show up until 1:15am, apart from a Great Spotted Woodpecker. But then it became ‘Bear Central’ all of a sudden. The next four hours gave us eight visits and some beautiful backlit shots as the sun rose. There wasn’t much sleeping done that night.

All that remained was breakfast and then the trip back to Heathrow and the end of one trip, but the start of another. Naturally the question arises of whether to return or not, or even of whether to try for Bears in Romania. The decision is we are going back, but it will be an August or September visit rather than in June. The group that went there the following week had great sightings, it was just bad timing on our part.

Finally a word for our guides, who were devastated at the lack of action we had witnessed, it had never happened to them before. So much so, they offered a repeat trip at a discount, something I’ve never had from any tour operator before. Naturally that was a factor in our decision, not just the discount, but also the genuine offer from two top guys. It’s not my habit of naming companies or guides that I use in these blogs, but I’m happy to put interested parties in touch with this company by way of personal message.

Next stop, the Isle of Mull.

A Session with the Foxes

Seeing Eye to Eye with a Fox

It must be around 30 years ago now that my love of Foxes was born. In my garden no more than half a mile from Weymouth town centre was a Badger sett that I thought was deserted. It turned out that it was occupied by Badgers, but within a couple of years they had departed. Imagine my surprise then when one Summer weekend, sat in the garden soaking up the sun, I spotted two Fox cubs sat on the bank looking at me. They were very relaxed and soon started to become playful, frolicking in the sunshine for quite a while.

That was just the start and as they became more mature they got braver and would come up to the patio doors and look in. On one occasion when the doors were open, one even ventured into the house. I recall sometime later I was on night duty at Weymouth fire station beside the inner harbour and spotted a fox meandering along the pavement in the early hours. But all of this was in my pre-photography days.

The story then moves forward some years to July 2013 and my early days attempting wildlife photography. One evening I spotted another two Fox cubs playing in a field above Upwey churchyard and next day returned with my gear and waited. I was lucky and got a visit, but subsequent attempts drew a blank.

It was around this time I was paying regular visits to Lorton Meadows Nature Reserve for the Barn Owls and spotted another Fox near the edge of the reserve, but again, subsequent attempts to photograph it were fruitless. It’s true to say I wasn’t actively seeking them out and that’s still the case, but is something I intend to rectify. A project is in the planning stage.

Early in 2018 I renewed my quest for Fox pictures when we took a long weekend trip to Zandvoort in The Netherlands where there is a healthy population living in the dunes. We got some very good shots there, as the Foxes are relatively tame and consequently came quite close. There was plenty of lively interaction between them and we both came away with our best Fox images to date. (See Blog post 28th January 2018)

I was quite excited earlier this year though when Rose suggested we pay a visit to a hide in Buckinghamshire solely to photograph Foxes. She’d heard good reports and seen encouraging results, so a booking was made and one Monday in May saw us on our way up the M3.

For a change, the weather seemed to be on our side and by 3:30pm we were settled in the hide and ready to go. Pleasingly, the hide is on the low side of a paddock and partly sunken into the ground so that you are at eye level with the animals. It was a bonus to learn that there were two groups of Foxes using the paddock, which gave us even more scope.

It wasn’t long before we had a visit and for the next three and a half hours it was pretty busy. We were able to get close shots and long shots to include some habitat and different animals to choose from. This was a refreshing change for us, because too often we are in the situation where we are both photographing the same animal and although the slight variation of angle helps, it’s never enough.

One slight downside was the wealth of Magpies on the site regularly photo bombing our images. But then just occasionally there would be a shot where the presence of the Magpie actually added to the picture. Of course this is a by-product of the baiting that is put down to attract the Foxes and if you take advantage to get some Magpie shots when there are no Foxes about, it’s never a problem.

There is also an upside to it as well. Buzzards are frequent visitors and although I’ve been trying to get decent shots of Buzzards for a number of years, they just don’t play ball. Find one sat on a fence post beside the road as you drive past and they don’t move. Stop the car and before you come to a halt, they’re gone. But I don’t need to worry anymore; I don’t think I’ll ever get better pictures than I did from this hide.

It didn’t stop there though. Given that it’s Buckinghamshire, there’s a healthy population of Red Kites there and they harried the Buzzards ceaselessly, getting quite vicious at times. So although we went for the Foxes, we got so much more.

With the sun not at its midsummer peak, the paddock went into shadow at around 7pm and as it did, so the action diminished significantly and we decided it was time to leave. On exiting the hide there was just one more treat in store as the Red Kites were still circling overhead, so I spent a few minutes on some flight shots as the sun was getting lower.

It had been a very fruitful day that we thoroughly enjoyed and is almost certain to be repeated. Maybe next time the second hide that we saw under construction will be operating and we will be able to use it to get a different set of angles and consequently backgrounds. It looked like it was going to be a better-appointed hide too. Drop me an email if you want to learn more about this particular set up.

Scotland in April

Sparrowhawk in the Rain

It pains me to admit I’d reached the age of 55 before I ever set foot across the border into Scotland. I was still in my bike-racing phase and hadn’t moved into photography, but the trip was mainly about climbing a couple of Munros. We managed one, but bad weather scuppered the attempt on the second on safety grounds and Ben Nevis had to wait another year. But two things struck me; the sheer beauty of the scenery like nothing I’d seen before and the fact the compact camera I had couldn’t do it justice.

Since then we have been back half a dozen times, not to mention three trips to Shetland, three to Mull and one to North Uist. All bar one of those was for wildlife photography. It’s no surprise then that we nipped up to Dumfries and Galloway in April for a long weekend workshop.

The plan was to set off on Thursday for the Lake District to avoid the Friday melee on the M6, camp overnight and continue next morning to the Red Kite feeding station at Bellymack Farm. All went well until we arrived and were greeted by rain sheeting across the valley horizontally. It was a no go, a complete waste of time, so we headed off to Raiders Road to check out the camping at Otters Pool where we planned to spend Monday night before heading back to Dorset next morning.

The workshop wasn’t due to start until Saturday morning, but there was a meet up planned for the hotel restaurant on Friday night. There were ten attendees, but it was soon apparent that not all were staying in the hotel, as there weren’t enough rooms. That made things a bit disjointed unfortunately.

On Saturday morning, we were assigned one of the Sparrowhawk hides, mainly because on a previous visit we spent a whole day in the hide and the bird didn’t show up. In the hide just after 7am, we weren’t disappointed this time as we had four visits. The hide is very well situated and also gave us Red Squirrel, Jay, Siskin, Great Spotted Woodpecker and Redpoll along with the more common woodland birds. There was time to head back to the hotel for dinner before returning to the hide while still daylight to set up for Fox and Tawny Owls. The Owl put in an appearance, but the Fox was a no show. What was pleasing about this is it was done without the use of flash, the perch being permanently lit by LED lanterns. Day one was done and we were shattered, but it was another early start next day.

It was our turn in one of the two diving Kingfisher hides, which gave us some super shots, despite the fact the set up is not perfect. We spent most of the morning there before moving on to the Cuckoo hide after our packed lunch. Personally, I felt the word hide was a little grand for what was basically a solid roofed gazebo with some camouflaged scrim netting draped in front, but it did the trick and we had a frantic four-minute session before the bird departed.

Moving on from there we set up to capture Stonechat, but soon gave up and took the long drive back to the second Kingfisher diving hide. This hide is set up much better, but doesn’t have the same level of activity as the hide we’d been in during the morning. A disappointing end to the afternoon, so we set off for the hotel and dinner, eagerly awaiting our evening session with the Pine Martens.

For some reason we had to meet our guide five miles away in the wrong direction and then drive back past the hotel to get to the Pine Martens, which was quite a distance. Once we arrived where the vehicles had to be parked, we then had a walk of about half a mile along a disused railway track and over a viaduct to another ‘hide’. This was a wooden framework draped with black plastic, a wooden bench to sit on and no floor, just a muddy quagmire.

As a wildlife photographer I’m well used to laying in mud (and other less pleasant things) to get the shot. It goes with the territory and I happily accept that. But I feel that if we are expecting to be in a hide, especially as this was on a foul wet night and pitch black, it should meet a certain standard.

This turned out to be a total waste of time, no Pine Marten deemed to show its face and who could blame it on such a night. Worryingly, while we were in the hide (our guide had taken us there and left), we heard what sounded like a pack of dogs gradually approaching. We never saw anything and eventually they moved away, but it was somewhat unnerving, especially as we had to find our own way back to the car in the dark. It could also be that the sound of the dogs was what kept the Pine Marten at bay.

The final day was left to members of the group to decide which hides they particularly wanted to revisit. Our choice was to go back to the same kingfisher hide as the previous morning and then have another crack at the Sparrowhawk from the second hide. This proved to be a good choice and gave us even more Kingfisher shots than the previous day.

Lunchtime saw us move on to the Sparrowhawk hide and immediately had Red Squirrels and of course the resident woodland birds. I’d decided to be more choosy on this visit and apart from a few shots, I concentrated on the Sparrowhawk as the background from this hide was more pleasing. It may have been the wrong decision as we only had one visit, but it lasted more than 10 minutes and so I had plenty of opportunity to get THE shot.

Once the Sparrowhawk took off, we just had a short while to grab some more Redpoll pictures, before we were off to our final location. This involved a 10-mile drive to meet up with one of our guides and be shown to the Badger ‘hide’. We hadn’t expected the workshop to last into the evening of the final day, it only became clear the previous evening. The consequence was we had to shelve our camping plans and have another night in the hotel. Another bizarre happening became apparent too, when we learned the tour leader had left to go back home into England. It’s certainly the first workshop we’ve ever done where the tour leader bailed out before the end.

We had a short walk from where the cars were parked to the location of the hide and yet another surprise. This hide consisted of a wooden bench capable of seating three between a tree trunk and the edge of a dug out bank, roughly ten to twelve feet from the entrance to the set. That was it. To make matters worse, there were five of us in the group. It meant that four had to cram on the bench, while one person at a time layed flat on the ground to the side. It wasn’t ideal.

The Badgers soon appeared and we all got some shots, but they didn’t hang around as we’d been led to believe. Probably the rotation of positions while they were out of sight unsettled them in some way, but it was entirely necessary as it was impossible to remain in the laying position for very long and the fourth position on the bench partly obscured the animals from view.

Two of the group decided to leave and after 90 minutes, we also wandered back to the car, leaving one guy on the bench. Over dinner later on he told us that once the four of us had left, there was much more activity and we concluded it was because he was able to just sit there and allow them to relax.

Next day it was the long haul back home and chance to reflect on how the trip had gone. Undoubtedly we bagged some excellent pictures and in the main enjoyed the interaction with other members of the group. However, the quality of what was on offer and a lack of organisation did detract from the trip and would impact on any thoughts of a repeat.

Special Birthday (Part 4)

Preparing for Take Off

Unbeknown to Rose, Alfred had a plan to make her birthday trip really special and this was to be the day it happened. She had an inkling he had planned something, but was thinking along the lines of the people from the local Maasai village to come to the lodge to do their dances in her honour and maybe for there to be a birthday cake at dinner. How wrong she was.

The scene had been set the previous night when we were told we needed to go out an hour earlier than normal. The excuse was that the Fast Five (a coalition of 5 male Cheetahs we wanted to see) were moving into the area and we needed to be out in time to catch them in a particular area.

At 5am we set off in the pitch black and took a different route to normal. A while later driving along a wide track, we were overtaken by a couple of other vehicles travelling at some speed and Rose was inquisitive to know what was going on. Joseph passed it off as them being in a hurry to get to the same sighting as us.

A short distance further on we spotted some torchlights in a field beside the road and as we got closer we could see a lot of people and some vehicles parked there. We motored on by, but Rose asked Joseph what was happening there and he quite truthfully told her the answer. Not much further on, he stopped the vehicle, turned around and headed back to the field. The inevitable question was asked to which Joseph replied, “You’re going on a balloon flight”.

What followed was an unforgettable experience, a full hour balloon flight at up to 1000ft, followed by a champagne breakfast in the bush. A special experience for a special birthday.

It was mid-morning by the time we resumed normal game driving activities and spotted a pair of Topi fighting. We’ve seen this happen before, but this fight went on for fully ten minutes that we witnessed and was quite ferocious. No injuries resulted, amazing since the horns they possess look like they could inflict some nasty puncture wounds.

As the day progressed we had some more great sightings starting with a Wattled Plover (Lapwing) and a Lioness drinking. These were followed by a large Buffalo herd containing a number of cute calves and then two Thomson’s Gazelles mating.

The day ended as beautifully as it had begun when we had a very special two-hour sighting of a female Leopard named Bella 2. We got some wonderful images of her peering through gaps in bushes, stalking and just walking out in the open. It was yet another superb Leopard sighting that we have become used to getting on our trips to the Mara.

Having used the Fast Five as an excuse for the previous morning’s early start, our final morning was back to the normal 6am departure. The news coming through was that the Fast Five were indeed moving towards an area where we could see them and so we starting making our way towards the point at which they were expected to cross the boundary of the Mara National Park.

On the way we spotted our old Lion friend Olbarnoti, seemingly none the worse for wear after his extended chase of Notch 2. We also got pictures of a lone Black-backed Jackal carrying a body part he had stolen from a kill.

When we reached the border (actually a series of white painted rocks spaced about 200m apart) there were some rather zealous rangers keeping watch, so we had to sit and wait until the Cheetahs crossed into our territory. For three hours we followed them as they stalked across the open plain and watched them make a couple of failed attempts to make a kill before they were finally successful.

We sat watching them for nearly 30 minutes, but after about a quarter of an hour I had spotted a couple of Lions making their way towards us. Keeping a close eye on them it soon became apparent that it was a whole pride of Lions and they were using their numbers to set up an ambush to take the kill. Once the Cheetahs were aware of the Lions, it was a rush to eat as much as they could before their kill was stolen from them. Soon a chase ensued involving two Lionesses one of whom continued to chase a Cheetah that was unaware she was doing so. One of his brothers gave a warning call and the Cheetah turned on overdrive and was gone. Meanwhile the other Lioness had grabbed the kill and walked off with it.

Unfortunately there were some unsavoury moments involving the rangers, who were trying to fine drivers for going off-road and line their own pockets. We even witnessed guests in one vehicle paying them to be allowed to go off-road.

That was our final drive on this trip and we took the afternoon plane from the Mara back to Nairobi. Unlike previous trips, where we had dinner in a hotel before heading to the airport for our late evening flight back to London, this time we had booked an extra day in Nairobi. There were two reasons why we did this; firstly to visit the Giraffe feeding centre attached to Giraffe Manor, and secondly to visit the David Sheldrick Trust where we are sponsoring two elephants.

From my perspective I was uncomfortable with the Giraffe centre and unconvinced of its value save for a tourist attraction at the expense of the animals. The David Sheldrick experience was the total opposite, where the hour that the centre is open passed all too quickly. We certainly got a feel for the work they do in taking care of the wildlife in Kenya and were able to spend time with ‘our’ Elephants.

That was our trip over. Until November…..

Special Birthday (Part 3)

Olchore in the early morning light

Day four in the Mara was less frenetic, but certainly started with a bang as Alfred took over the guiding for a couple of days. The sky was only just beginning to lighten when he spotted a large male Leopard walking purposefully in fairly open terrain. What followed was an hour of following this guy and making the most of the opportunity before he sought cover from the sun.

There are plenty of Black-backed Jackals in the Mara, but unless they are hanging around waiting for their turn to feast on a kill, they tend not to hang around long for a photo session. We were lucky to find one on its own and quite relaxed, so we spent some time watching and photographing.

Later on we caught up with our first Lion sighting of the day when we found Long Neck, a female we’d seen previously, with Baba Yao, a male we hadn’t seen before. Much mating was taking place between them, but not far away was another male with two females. We weren’t prepared for what happened next though and witnessed the spectacle of the male mating with one female and when he’d finished, went straight to the other female and mated with her!

Over the years we’ve seen quite a few Secretarybirds, but usually they are constantly on the move and when you pull up to take a shot, they walk away. Apart from a sighting of one perched in a tree on a previous Mara trip, good shots have been hard to come by, but for once we found a relaxed bird that walked parallel with us and within range for a full 5 minutes.

More bird sightings followed as we made our way to the Marsh area, including another Kori Bustard doing the feather-fluffing cooling routine and Africa’s most photographed bird, the Lilac-breasted Roller. Once at the Marsh, the Lion cubs we had watched the previous day were putting on a show, while a camera crew lunched not a hundred metres away, blissfully unaware.

Sometime after our own lunch, we were to witness another amusing spectacle, unfortunately out of camera range, but it was a good opportunity just to watch and absorb the scene. A female lion and her two sub-adult cubs were out in open ground when the cubs spotted a lone, fully adult Buffalo and decided to give chase. Their inexperience soon showed through as they were unable to combine their efforts successfully, but they didn’t give up. More accurately, they didn’t know when they were beaten and that it was time to stop. Very swiftly the tables were turned and the Buffalo turned around and chased away the cubs. It was very interesting to watch and gave us all a good laugh.

By now we were halfway through the Mara section of the trip and took the decision over dinner to spend next day back at the Hippo carcass from day three. On the way we had a ten-minute encounter with the Topi Plains pride of Lions and a couple of minutes with an Elephant and her sub adult offspring.

Once in position at the Hippo, we were able to watch the interaction between the Crocodiles, the Marabou Storks, various Vultures and not one, but four Lions. Scarface had been joined by the other members of the Four Musketeers. When there was a lull in proceedings, there was a pair of Little Bee-eaters posing nicely. That was us set up for the day, save for a brief visit to a Hyena den on the way back to the lodge.

Back out with Joseph next day, we were on to a lone Cheetah sighting as the sun came up. In fact this same Cheetah book-ended the whole day, where not much else happened. We had some really good bird sightings, but nothing that was new to us and a visit to the Hippo revealed it had finally been dragged out into the river and submerged. What was a highlight of the day was meeting up for the second time this trip with Dr Elena Chelysheva, Head of the Mara Meru Cheetah Project. She was able to tell us the Cheetah we had been watching was Olchore. Rarely have I met anyone so enthusiastic about their work and her knowledge of Cheetahs in general and those in the Mara in particular is encyclopaedic.

We now only had one full day left, but what a day it was to turn out to be.