I've always been fascinated by ptarmigans. Maybe because of their appearance and the habit to turn white during winter; maybe because in the rest of Europe they can be just found in very difficult environments to reach (well, at least for me): the mountain heights. Here in Sweden, latitude helps me to defeat altitude, and ptarmigans can be met at more "comfortable" heights. Nevertheless, I had yet to photograph them in their snow-white, winter plumage (but I did in the spring one: go here and be patient enough to scroll down until May).
A gap now filled.

Subtle and pinky, the last lights of the day, reflected by the clouds, fall softly on the snowy scenery and the river Stor-Fjätan, in the nature reserve Långfjället.

One to end it.

The month just gone has been one of the warmest in the last 50 years, here in Dalarna. Wind, temperatures regularly above zero (even today, December the 31st, a day in which we use to struggle against -25/30°) and frequent rain.
I could well have stayed in Northern Italy to get such a weather...
Consequently, that has been a really poor photo month, with a bare landscape, little and dirty snow, grass emerging in the meadows, and wide sections of underwood entirely green.
For this end of the month (and year), then here it is a shot from its beginning.
Have a Happy 2014, everyone.

Few days ago in the flooded forest of Göljån: lynx's footprints, not older than a handful of hours.
This gives me the opportunity to narrate an “almost” close encounter with the big cat of the subject, few years ago, in the very same location. I was there to photograph a dipper which was hanging out along one the several creeks crossing the wood devastated by the great flooding from 1997; by the way, exactly the one, frozen, in the picture here.
To get there, you have to walk on a narrow wooden boardwalk. I was a twenty meters from it, bent on the tripod and focused on the dipper coming and going on a fallen tree not so far. After just ten minutes I picked up my gear and was heading to my car: on the boardwalk, well clear and obvious on the dry wood, a very fresh track of linx's wet footprints was there, and it wasn't there before.

To make it short, a lynx passed by my back, just 20 meters from me and in open sight, while I was staring exactly at the opposite direction.

Ever since, inevitably, everytime I recall that moment, with a bitter smile the old commercial I embed here below comes to my mind.

The gift December brings me is the gold from the scarce water which still freely flows in the rivers, colored by the winter sun reflected by snow-covered trees; or the amber tone of tannins dissolved in it, made ​​evident by a white, spotless ice which is forming as I see it, in the very moment a new wave touches an icy rock.
It is the silver forest encrusted with thick rime, when it’s already freezing but little snow has come.
It is the red of the pines lit by the last sunset moment, standing out against the bluish shadow as corals or sea fans in an underwater picture.
Entirely natural colors, migrated like you see them from the original scene to the memory card, and from there to the screen ... which makes the gifts even more precious.