A birch in backlight, as a table lamp turned on, reflects itself in the lake of Särna.
It's the last day of September, the leaves will last just few more days; the last color of the title, however, isn’t the one from the tree-lamp about to turn off, but in general the one of a picture which marks the transition to the winter photos, here in the Chronicles, dominated (as you’ll see if you’ll go through the past years) by snow and ice.
The latter already here, in this second half of November, while the former (absolute protagonist of the next five months), as any self-respecting prima donna, is still awaited.

Several are the reasons why the Fulufjället has been declared a National Park, ten years ago.
It hosts the Swedish highest waterfall, where the Scandinavia southernmost pair of gyrfalcons (world's largest and rarest falcon) is nesting every year; its origin goes back to 900 millions years ago, not coming from recent ice ages; the oldest tree in the world grows on it (almost 10,000 years old), and it is, consequently, also the oldest individual living being on the planet.
Last, but not least, the vast plateau (34x15 km at 1,000 mt height) on its top is the only mountain area in Sweden with no signs of reindeer grazing in centuries.

The result is a peculiar, pristine vegetation, unique for number and diversity of species: bushes, plants and carpets of whitish reindeer lichen as far as the eye can see.
And here I close the advertisement.

I was facing this environment in a late afternoon with a dull light, totally unfit both for the lichen cushions and the autumn blueberries quilting them. In a short enlightenment of lateral thinking, I then asked myself “Why not just use a flash?” Obviously, only directed toward the area I wanted to enhance, leaving the rest of the landscape to its lifeless light.

I went up to "Erik-Knutsåsen" observation tower nearby Gördalen, along the northern borders of the national park Fulufjället. It's a lovely viewpoint upon a wild area covered by a high ground, sparse forest with spruces and birches, wavy hills alternated with marshes and small ponds. Just got to the top, I spot on the platform some tiny masses of material, which at a closer look reveal to be droppings (or hairballs) from an owl. I raise my eyes: twenty meters away I cross the magnetic ones from a hawk-owl, which clearly chose as well to take advantage of the view from the tower. A wonderful encounter, unexpected and not so usual.
You can’t be ready for anything anytime, and I had climbed the tower with a landscape, “short” photo set up: thus this picture is a generous crop, which, however, reflects the spirit of the original composition, where the animal (by choice, by need or both) is placed in the environment. The kind of wildlife image I prefer.

There is a moment which clearly marks the transition between the autumn of the colors and the pre-winter, bare and monochromatic one. It usually happens at the beginning of October, when the golden leaves of birches come all together to the end of their life path.
In the very days when waxwings, fieldfares and redwings come in waves to strip the rowans from their berries, deleting the residual red patches from the landscape, a couple of very windy days makes the same transformation erasing the yellow, and changing the birches in black and white ghosts with a silky skin.
The picture comes from the day after one of those windstorms, a morning hailed by a glorious light shining on the bell tower of Särna’s new church, so enhancing in backlight the trees new dress. Or better: its absence.

Two very young rowans stand out from a ground covered with soft moss. Probably born from two seeds coming from the same tree, they are in fact brothers, and they honour that relationship assuming a very similar posture; perhaps because of the chromosomes, or the position of the sun, or... maybe just for coincidence.

The coming winter is supposed to be the best since many years for the phenomenons associated with solar activity. Inquiries about places and times keep flowing in my email. I want to make something clear: Särna isn't the best place at all for northern lights (sadly): too far south respect where the party really is. You have to consider at least the area starting from the Polar Circle, going northward, in order to get reasonable chances to see an Aurora Borealis in the short time of a travel. That's why this picture comes from the Swedish Lapland (Porjus): take it as a greeting card with all my best wishes to whoever is going to leave in the next months, in the quest of the world's most beautiful show.