I believe I could spend the rest of my life in Sweden (and, to be honest, I hope to do so) and yet continue to experience a special emotion at every encounter with the Nordic fauna. After all, I am and I’ll always be a foreigner, a man from South of Europe raised between broad-leaf forests and Mediterranean scrub. To whom "Capercaillie" is a name which the aftertaste of a myth, that urogallus taken as paradigm of the endangered wildlife in the Alps. A shape which still makes me jump anytime I see it, despite I meet it quite often. Moose, balck grouse, dotterel… those are now my fellow travellers, the characters that accompany the days of that journey which is my Swedish life. The Capercaillie, but not just, is also a road companion in the literal meaning: along the roads it's easier to spot it and distinguish it from the depths of the forest; and it’s along a road, from the privileged point of observation of a scarcely nature-friendly car, that it’s possible to get closer to it, being it more confident towards a car than to a human. Urogallus, then, and one from yesterday: a cold and windy morning where I met several female squatted in holes dug in the earth, warming up; then, who knows, bringing that warmth to the chicks probably waiting nearby, under the shelter of the undergrowth. And now for something completely different.
This isn’t at all my usual photo genre, but, when I have the time to devote to a worthy subject, I don’t hold back. And the old church in Särna, entirely made by wood and from the 1684, deserves for sure much more than a quick look. The photo in flight shows the special coloration under the wings, which is peculiar for a gull: sooty, almost pure black, with a bright white border. A bird of this size feeds primarily on insects: the picture on the right (which is a crop) shows it aiming at one (most likely a mosquito) on the surface of a pond... and the answer to the question which someone might ask is: no, I have no photos of the moment in which it’s pecking it, because I was not quite ready (and neither was my autofocus). It isn’t Diver all the time.
Classics. A classic, not to say a cliché: an anemone in backlit, a picture a thousands of time already seen. But how to resist temptation of that sun finally warm and low (not a great spring this year, weather wise) which lights the Pasque Flower’s furry coat, and makes it shine as a tiny bonfire in the underwood? And how not to photograph the first anemones I’ve ever found in Särna? (actually, they were shown to me: thanks again Sara).
Playing with Water. Two recent shots to a couple of waterfalls among the closer to home, part of the series of more or less impressive waterfalls which, like a crown, surrounds Särna at almost 360 degrees along mountain slopes and main rivers. Today two months have gone without a new post. From today, a post every day for the next seven... for the lost time. Misunderstanding. There is no doubt it's a nest box, but probably that wasn’t exactly the way to use it, in the mind of the person who hung it. The bird, however (almost certainly a Fieldfare), somehow remained consistent to the object’s idea (I want to clarify that the nest was unused when I shot this). |
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.
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