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. Comments are closed.
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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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