I end posting the images from my journey to Skåne in May, with this three from Stenshuvud Park. This National Park, the southernmost of Sweden, preserves a promontory characterized by a peculiarly lush vegetation, which sometimes assumes the appearance of a Mediterranean environment, at least according to the provided documentation. As a Mediterranean by birth, I have to confess that quite a remarkable amount of imagination it's needed to make such a claim... Nevertheless, it is true that forest and underwood are here different than any other place I have ever known in Sweden, because of the species and how they are combined, even visually. In particular, I was struck by a stretch of flooded forest, an Alder wood where the partially uncovered roots, are creating small islets from which the trunks raise to the sky. Sedges and ferns complete a picture of great beauty. A relatively small area, no more than a couple of hundred meters, but that was enough to tie me up for two splendid early mornings of May.

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.

I love islands. Big ones, small ones. Tiny ones such as Hållö, barely a couple of kilometers of pink granite shaped by wind, sea and ice, where the look runs at 360°. Lying on it, a lighthouse, a handful of small wooden houses and tufts of flowers; swinging between rock and sky, clouds of gulls terns oystercatchers waders ducks and geese. In sight, the coast of Bohuslän with the lace of Smögen's roofs peeping through the rocky undulations of the coast, possibly the most characteristic village of the region. The look is back on the island: a hostel, lonely on a rock platform, provides the opportunity of a stay with unexpected comfort: Utpost Hållö (outpost), and the name couldn't be more appropriate. Isolation as a quiet testimonial, a place where to find for a few days an entirely "natural" peace (but not in July, when the place is assaulted by bathers); the pleasure - and the subtle torment at once - to be deprived of your car. Those were the perfect ingredients for a lovely and disintoxicating experience even in a country like Sweden, where there isn't really that much to disintoxicate from, after all.
Islands never fail you.