_ Let's take a step back to the Söderåsen National Park, end of October. I am in the highest part of the beechwood when I hear a constant swish. Something quite similar to a river noise, but there are no streams here around. I approach the source of noise, which rises in intensity. All the sudden a cloud and a rumble explode, coming from the undergrowth: a huge flock of Brambling takes flight. And takes flight, and again and again... it lasts for a whole minute at least, filling the air with multiple twittering waves which land not far from me covering both ground and canopy, where they go back doing what they were doing before I disturbed them: frenetically feed on beechnuts. Bramblings use to gather for the winter, sometime building up enormous numbers: I remember well the wintering flock in Slovenia which, few years ago, made quite a sensation between bird enthusiasts, estimated in 4 million birds. Here the figures are lower, but I am looking for sure to some tens of thousands birds, hard to say exactly how many. _I keep getting close, and all around me more flocks rise, deflagrating in the mist with waterfall rumble, as geysers' eruptions. I carefully approach further: on the ground the birds are so many that the leaves are no more visible. Another group takes flight, heading towards me, flies over me, it's above me and around as a whirl, a maelström made by small bodies and frenziedly flapped wings. The hands run to the camera, but the result is totally inadequate, as easily predictable. I find myself covered with droppings but rewarded by one of the most touching nature experience I've ever had. Someone doesn't make it: last pictures shows a male trapped in a dead branch, perhaps during a sudden attempt to take flight.
Back in Sweden from my Italian travel, I made a stop for just a single day (sadly) in Söderåsen National Park, which left me in May such a beautiful memory during my travel in Skåne. The park preserves a strip of the largest Nordic beech forest, an unusual one, at least for an Italian: while this tree is a typical mountain species in the south of the continent, it thrives in Sweden in plain's environments. And of course it unfolds itself in autumn in one of its more magical dresses. Here they are some shots taken in the short time I was there: a selection of traditional wood pictures, followed by two more dreamy visions.
Söderåsen National Park, Skåne. A park well-known for its beautiful and extensive beech forest and for the rift which creates fairy forest and stream scenery, to say the least. Despite being rich in species (including Stock Dove, symbol of the protected area), its main attraction aren't birds; however, it is just the winged presences in the small lake of Skärdammen that I want to focus on. They all are wild, it goes without saying, starting from the Whooper swan pair, part of a small population wintering in Germany that stops in the south of Sweden rather than all the way along the traditional route to the northern taiga quarters. In last years the couple is regularly back to nest in the small site, and has become an attraction in itself for the many visitors of the Park (the Visitor Center overlooks the pond). Went to Skåne on a landscape-oriented trip (therefore with a maximum focal length of 300mm), with a little surprise I found myself having fun with birds, trusting on the trust - if I may use the expression - typical for animals accustomed to continuous - and above all well-disposed - human presence. Those are opportunities not to be missed, in order to try new approaches with a calm and availability not normally granted. In this case the idea was to play with the light and the peculiar reflections, kindly offered by the young leaves of the surrounding beech trees at dawn, and to combine them, whenever possible, with a motion blur.
|
All site contents are: © Vitantonio Dell'Orto, all rights reserved worldwide. The Chronicles of Särna, and other stories from the North.
I live in Sweden, in Särna (Dalarna). The Chronicles are a photo diary about the nature (but not just) here around and from all the Scandinavian areas where my photo job takes me.
My book: "My Sweden - Tales from an Italian photographer in the North" is available in the bookstores and by the publisher.
Archives
October 2018
Categories
All
|