Fall Hiking in Sweden
It’s taken me quite a while to write this blog about my last hiking trip in autumn. So much so that it is winter already and snowing outside my window but here we are:
As the pandemic made international (and partially even regional) travel pretty much impossible, I haven’t had the opportunity for a proper hiking tour in quite a while (plus I was on two research cruises, that took up a lot of my time as well). So, I decided that I was finally going to do an autumn hiking tour this year. During my Bachelors and Masters studies, I could only do bigger tours during the semester break in summer and winter, so I was quite excited to go back to an area where I had done my first big solo trip during the summer after I finished high school - Sanfjället National Park in Sweden. A beautiful mountainous area that is the oldest national park of Europe and home to Swedens largest population of brown bears ( I was hopeful to maybe see a bear but wasn’t really expecting it since they’re very shy).
So, I prepared my gear and supplies, packed up my giant backpack and took the train up to Stockholm and from there on to Östersund by night train in a sleeper car (very nice way of travelling!). The last bit was a bus ride to the small village of Hedeviken north of the national park and then I was off hiking in the wilderness. For the first couple of days, I had chosen a winter trail… meaning I had to traverse a bunch of peatlands that hadn’t frozen over yet. That made for rather exhausting hikes but it was also fun and the landscape was beautiful anyways. And I noted with great relief that the colder temperatures meant that there were almost no mosquitos which can be a horrible nuisance during summer in Scandinavia.
During these first few days (but actually also most of the rest of the trip), the weather was rather grey with thick clouds and occasional light rain. But after a stop at the lake Stygtjärn and the waterfalls on its shore and just as I arrived at the edge of the national park with view of the mountain afar, I got to enjoy the first few rays of sun and a beautiful sunset.
I then proceeded through the dense forests at the foot and lower slopes of the mountain, where I met my first Siberian jays for the trip (more on them later). As the dense spruces turned to light birch forest and finally the heather and lichen of the upper mountain, an amazing play of colors:
Evening light atop the peak of Sanfjället.
I think my favorite spot of the national park is the saddle between the main peak of the mountain and the smaller Korpflyet in the South. During my first hike here (which was my first big solo trip), I spent the night there in the middle of a thunderstorm. That was quite the experience! This time, there was just a little light snow, that melted before the morning. But as I got out of the tent, I saw the clouds slowly opening up with the most amazing light developing. So I quickly headed up the slope and took the panorama that I used as the cover image for this blog. After taking the photo, I just stood there taking in the amazing landscape with the beautiful light but as is so often the case with scenes like this, the moment was over in a short while and the clouds closed back in.
Looking for brown bears for the next few days yielded nothing but scat. But that of course didn’t take away from the beauty of the landscape and other wildlife around.
And finally, as I was making my way back down through the forests around the mountain, I got a second chance at the Siberian jays with a family of them ramsacking the trees around me for food. Clearly they didn’t mind my presence and were very curious, so despite the lack of light, I still got quite a few nice shots of these amazing birds!
Bird migration at the North Sea
Thousands of Red knots gathering at the Rantumbecken on Sylt during spring migration.
Since I finished the work for my Master’s thesis on Hawai´i and defended it in Gothenburg in June (by the way, got an MSc. now, woohoo), I returned to Germany, worked for the summer and started a 6-month research project on zinc in the ocean. I still have a longer blog article in the making to summarize my year on Hawai´i but for now, here’s a quick one about some birds at the North Sea.
I grew up near Rendsburg in the North of Germany, so I’ve always felt at home at the North Sea and it’s one of my favorite areas for birdwatching and photography in the spring and fall. And for about ten years already, I’ve been working as a guide for a beginner’s ornithology course that is taking place twice a year (spring and fall) for a week in Klappholttal on the island of Sylt.
Sunrise over the Wadden Sea at low tide.
But what’s so special about the North Sea? It’s the Wadden Sea - the largest intertidal mud flats in the world (I think). Here, twice a day during low tide, vast areas along the coast fall dry and reveal muds full of worms and other critters for birds to eat. Particularly the arctic waders love coming to the Wadden Sea on the migration between their breeding grounds in Greenland, Scandinavia and Russia and their wintering grounds in the Mediterranean and Africa. Here, they can gather food and accumulate fat reserves for the big flight. But since every time after just a few hours, the tide returns, they have to find areas of higher elevation to rest during high tides. It is truly impressive to go to these high tide resting areas and observe the tens to sometimes hundreds of thousands of dunlins, red knots, bar-tailed godwits and curlews as well as of course the less common waders joining them.
Additionally to the resting waders, many songbirds migrate along the coastline with impressive numbers of thrushes and finches and of course every now and then some rare bird that got lost on its migration. Particularly on the island of Helgoland, these can often be found as it is quite far out at Sea with a lighthouse that attracts the birds at night and large numbers of birdwatchers that spot every single bird on the island.
I particularly love to see the birds that I observed in their breeding area on Varanger peninsula in Northern Norway (see my blog entry here: https://www.nicofroehberg.com/blog/arctic-summer) like snow buntings, horned larks, lapland buntings and dunlins here on their way to the warm South for winter. A fascinating phenomenon to observe is also the change between summer and winter plumage. Most of these birds show much more colorful and contrasty colors in spring and summer to impress their partners while in winter they try to be as camouflaged as possible to escape potential predators. While during spring migration, a lot of the birds are already changing into the summer plumage, now in fall most of them show largely different shades of grey and brown. And yet they can still be absolutely beautiful!
Three weeks ago, I was taking part in the birdwatching course on Sylt again. While this time, I didn’t spot a lot of rarities, I was able to show my participants some of the more common migratory birds very well to learn about their typical behaviors and how to spot the differences between the species. The large numbers of migratory birds at the North Sea shore allow to really get down for example the differences of red knot vs. dunlin, common vs. spotted redshank or meadow vs. rock pipit. This year, some of the highlights were a firecrest among the thousands of goldcrests and some horned larks that showed extremely well and let me take some beautiful pictures.
This weekend, a good friend of mine spontaneously invited me to come along for a prolonged weekend of birdwatching on Helgoland and - especially because I hadn’t been there for 2.5 years - I of course did come along. I was particularly keen to see the little auk, that had been stationary at Düne (the sandy little island next to the main island of Helgoland) for some days. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen and neither did I see the yellow-browed warbler or the siberian chiffchaff that some of the many other birders there saw. But nonetheless, I saw some nice birds and got some great photos. It started with a lapland bunting showing very well at the beach on the first afternoon and again on the last day up at the cliff. Another personal highlight for me were the bold snow buntings on Düne. Snow buntings are relatively rare but regular winter guests from the North at the coast and I’ve seen them many times before but never managed to get photos I was happy with. I really love these little birds, so I was very happy to finally get some good shots of them here. They were very daring, looking for food among the people at the beach and with some patience and after a while finally some sunlight, I was able to get really close and take photos until a sparrowhawk attempted to make them his lunch (unsuccessfully).
Another favorite of mine are the sanderlings - another visiting species from the North. They are always close to the breakwater, running along with the waves coming and going. And they stay out on the beach even in the most horrible weather. If worst comes to worst, they get together as a group and find shelter in a tire track or something similar. But most of the time you’ll still see them running around and looking for food in the sand and among the flotsam.
Sanderling in in the wind on Helgoland Düne.
All these birds cover incredible distances on their migration. Thousands of kilometers back and forth year after year. Many of them fly large parts of it nonstop only stopping to accumulate fat - often doubling their body mass in a short time - in the Wadden Sea before completing the rest of their journey. To me, this is a truly impressive phenomenon and I love observing and photographing these amazing creatures!
And finally: This year I put together a 2020 calendar again. The first batch sold out 3 weeks ago, but I just got a new batch and I’m really happy with how it turned out! It’s available in A4 (30x20 cm) for 15 € and A3 (30x45 cm) for 20€ plus shipping (that’s 3,79€ for A4 and 4,39€ for A3 to Germany, but I can ship anywhere, just send me a request for a quote on shipping costs). If you would like to have one or more calendars as a holiday present or for for yourself, contact me here: https://www.nicofroehberg.com/2020-calendar
2020 Calendar
Hiking and birding at Haleakalā Volcano, Maui
Half a year later and I am done with my Master’s degree. During a second field trip to Nomilo fishpond on Kaua’i, I could successfully test the instrument I developed and gather data for my thesis. Analyzing the data and writing the thesis report chained me to the desk for several months and during that time I hardly got out to take any photos. But during the last weeks I had on Hawai’i, we managed to fit in a little trip to Maui over an extended weekend to get up to Haleakalā volcano for some hiking and bird watching.
Haleakalā is a truly special place on Maui with 3300 m elevation that can be reached only through a narrow winding road. And it is one of the few places where you can relatively easily escape the touristic craze of Hawai’i and see some native vegetation and songbirds. We started our trip by hiking down into the crater from the summit on the western side along the southern slope to Palikū on the eastern side to camp over night. It was a long, strenuous hike at high elevation and temperature through a unique terrain. The crater is filled with volcanic rubble and sand. It is a very dry environment and few plants can survive these harsh conditions like the endemic silversword that grows only at Haleakalā.
A silversword species endemic to the slopes of Haleakalā volcano.
Palikū on the other hand is a little oasis formed by the rainwater running down the northeastern slope of the crater with lush green vegetation and many of the beautiful hawaiian honeycreepers. There I could see the ‘Iwi (scarlet honeycreeper) as well as ‘Apapanes and Hawai'i 'Amakihis. Additionally, flying over, I could see two Nene geese that I had previously seen on Kaua’i (thegeese were flying over, I wasn’t) and a short-eared owl with prey in its fangs. With invasive mammals like cats, rats, and mongoose as well as diseases that were introduced to Hawai’i during its colonization (I know it wasn’t officially a colonization but let’s not debate history here) have drastically reduced the native songbird population. Nowadays, the honeycreepers and other native forest birds can be found almost exclusively in remote areas of high elevation like Haleakalā and Koke’e state park. So, this was only the second chance I had to see and photograph them and I was very happy to get a few nice shots.
On the narrow Halemau’u trail.
The next day we hiked back around the northern side of the crater and up the narrow, winding Halemau’u trail to get to Hosmer Grove for another two nights of camping. Hosmer grove is more popular since it is easier to access, so the birds are a little more shy than at Palikū but with some patience, I was able to photograph a feeding ‘Iwi honeycreeper. It was a quite special experience, to see these birds use their beak that is specifically adapted to getting the nectar out of flowers like that of the native Māmane tree.
I wish I could have spent more time in the remote areas of Hawai’i to observe the native vegetation and birds. But nevertheless, it was an amazing experience to live on Hawai’i for a year, do the research for my thesis and explore its amazing landscape as far as possible with the time I had available. Now, I’ll spend six months in Bremen to do some research in preparation of my PhD and hopefully have a little more time to spend outdoors and take photos.
The White Terns of Honolulu
This will be a blog post with little text but many pictures about the white terns living in Honolulu, Hawai’i. This is a truly unique and wonderful situation where a seabird species adapted to living and thriving in a very urban environment. Not only is this rare for seabird species in general though an upcoming trend (thinking of the oystercatchers that are conquering European cities) but also for white terns in particular. Most populations of these white fairy-like birds breed rather remotely on small islands in the open ocean similar to Hawai’i.
What is most stunning about them however is how they actually breed on the bare branches of the trees without even building a nest. The single egg is placed in the cup of a cut-off branch or a fork. The chicks have specially adapted feet with long claws, enabling them to hang on to the bark until they can fly away. All the while, the parents are busy flying out to sea to catch fish and bringing it back to feed their offspring.
The terns can be found breeding in trees all over Honolulu and in particular right in front of the Marine Science Building of the University where I am working. This allowed me to follow one of the nests from hatching to fledging and observe and photograph the young tern you see below (I call it Gretel) growing up. This was a unique opportunity and magical experience for me!
The freshly hatched chick - just one day old - stretches its wings
Shouting at the photographer from the safety of mom’s plumage.
At 6 days old, it has grown significantly already.
7 days
9 days old - braving the weather
2 weeks old - the rations need to get bigger to keep up with the growth
3 weeks old - the ugly teenager phase when the baby downs start to be replaced by the adult plumage
The feathers are still too soft but the urge to fly is too great not to try at least.
As the parents are busy catching food, the family is rarely seen together like this.
After 5 weeks, almost just a down collar is left…
And the wings are ready for the first attempts at flying to the surrounding branches.
Meeting the neighbor’s kid.
The parent returns with fish to an empty nest.
But flying is exhausting so the young one returns so to get a snack.
Proud parents.
6 weeks - the young tern still has some downs and sticks around the nesting place but already practices flying around the yard.
After 9 weeks, Gretel has become almost indistinguishable from her parents and will soon be able to catch her own food.
Taking my Camera Swimming
Swimming to Moku Nui island with my camera to shoot the wedge-tailed shearwaters there.
Sounds like a stupid idea but turned out pretty well. A few weeks ago on the beach, a colleague told me about Moku Nui, a small island with a seabird reserve just off the east coast of Oahu. It is the smaller of the Mokulua islands but access to the larger is not permitted while on Moku nui access is permitted to part of the shore.
The difficulty is getting there. It is quite popular to go there by kayak or canoe but I don't have either and since Hawai'i is such a popular holiday destination, rentals are very expensive here. Especially since as a photographer I of course want to be out with the first light so I would have had to rent a boat for two days. But looking at the map I realized that with 1.5 km from the shore, the distance would be short enough for me to swim. Problem being of course that I wouldn't be able to take any equipment with me unless I figured out how to transport it without getting it wet at all.
Getting ready at Lanikai beach with Moku Nui on the left side on the horizon.
The solution was finding a reliable dry bag. I had wanted to get one anyways since I wanted to go swimming in the mornings at the beach before going to university but had nowhere to leave my laptop etc. while in the water. I ended up getting a buoy design dry bag with inflatable compartments as many triathletes use them for training and after testing it for over a week with no leaks, I felt confident that it could keep my camera reasonably safe. Of course I double bagged everything within the dry bag, too so even if a little water intruded it wouldn't damage my camera. And a little risk always remains when taking gear into nature.
So, I went out in the dark and swam over with first light. I could not make it on the island with the actual sunrise. I had a few brief moments of nice morning lights shining through the clouds but mostly unfortunatley it was rather grey.
The largest part of Moku Nui is restricted from access to protect the seabird breeding grounds particularly the shearwaters who breed in shallow dug holes in the ground. The main species on Moku Nui are the wedge-tails shearwaters and bulwer's petrels. I did not see any petrels this time but I suspect that they are simply breeding further up to the inside of the island. ANd there was not a lot of flight activity. But I could shoot several nice portraits of shearwaters sitting in the grass and I have taken quite a few nice flight shots of them while I was at sea on RV Sonne north of New Zealand. One of the most amazing things to see of course always are young animals and chicklets in particular. Mostly you don't see the nests of the shearwaters hidden in burrows in the ground but I could find one adorable cchick that was sitting outside underneath the protection of an overhanging rock.
As the morning progressed, it did not seem like there would be more light and as the first tourist were arriving in kayaks and outrigger canoes, I decided to call it for a day, pack my gear carefully into the dry bag again and return to the shore. I am not fully satisfied with the pictures I got with the short moments of light as I wasn't quick enough to take the bird portraits when the sun briefly came out but I will definitely return another time or two. The swim is fun over a wide, shallow reef and not too long and transporting my gear like that worked out really well. Though next time I will have to wear some long-sleeved shirt to protect against the jellyfish. I got stung multiple times on the way out, lukily none of them were painful enough to keep me from swimming but I can't count on always being that lucky.
Portrait of a wedge-tailed shearwater.
My "First" Impressions of Hawaii
A little review of my first time living and working on Hawaii.
Sea Turtles sleeping under the stars on the beach of Nomilu, Kaua'i.
Now I've already been living on Hawaii for over a month, so I can't really call this my first impressions anymore. But of course I still wanted to give a little accord of my experiences with the islands so far. So what took me so long?
As I announced in my last blog, I came to Hawaii to do research for my Master's thesis in Marine Science, studying the biogeochemistry of a pond on the island of Kaua'i. I moved to Honolulu in the end of June and was off to a very intense start. From my first day at the University, I had 12 days to prepare for the first fieldtrip to take samples at my research area. So I had to start planning what samples I wanted to take, putting together the materials and prepare an outline of objectives. Then we went out to Nomilu on Kaua'i with a team of five people to take measurements and samples and test some new equipment (including a small ROV for underwater exploration, really exciting!). And since we came back, I've been super busy analyzing samples in the laboratory and compiling the first available data. This first trip was intended as an exploratory assessment of a large array of basic environmental parameters to narrow down the future research focus further from the little data that was available for the area before.
A monk seal resting on the beach.
Apart from being very interesting for my research, I have to say that Nomilu is an absolutely beautiful area. We were camping at the pond and it felt like working in paradise. With rocky shores and a white sand beach nearby that was regularly visited by resting monk seals and sea turtles and just perfect weather. As scientific fieldwork usually is, it was very exhausting having a full program with work during day and night but also a beautiful experience. I had a little mishap, cutting my hand on the first evening, but although the area is very isolated, surrounded by a large coffee plantation, the emergency room was well in reach to get me stitched up. And apart from that the work went really well and we were met extremely kindly by the owners of the property. So once more a stunning experience and I can't wait to go back there for further sampling.
The main reason it took me so long to get this together is that outside of University, I have only managed to do a few short trips in the area and didn't get many photos yet that I considered worth sharing. It is quite difficult to get away from civilization and tourist groups here. That is not to say though that there are no beautiful natural areas here. From what I have seen so far on Oahu (the island where Honolulu is located), I see it as two basic types of environments. One is the coast with rough volcanic basalt shores, dry shrub and white sand beaches. The other are the ridges and valleys towards the inside of the island. Getting into those forests feels like being in the tropical rainforest. Of course it was quite the change for me, getting used to the hot climate here. I am much better adapted to the colder, rough weather of northern Germany and Scandinavia. But considering the boiling hot summer Europe is currently experiencing, ironically it actually is rather mild here in comparison.
In the busy time between finishing my first year of studies in Gothenburg, moving all my stuff back to Germany and then going to Hawaii, I did not prepare too intensely for birdwatching here. Of course I knew about the struggles with invasive species that most of the Pacific islands face. And of course, we have such problems, too. But it is much more problematic when populations are so isolated that an invader can easily eradicate an endemic species that lives only on one particular island. I was rather shocked to learn how bad it really is on Hawaii. So many species have been introduced here and spread widely that the native birds have actually become the rarity. I have seen very few and of the images shown here, only the 'Iwa frigatte bird is a native species to Hawaii and all other bird species have been introduced on the islands from around the world by humans. Many are very colorful and pretty but the knowledge that the introduction of these birds has displaced so many native species does take away from the joy of seeing them a little. Of course this problem extends beyond just bird species to all parts of the ecosystem, but birds are what I know best and where it seems to be the most severe.
4th of July fireworks.
Lastly a little take on American culture from the perspective of student from the northern German countryside: Well, most clichées were fulfilled. Big cars, sugar and guns. For me as a cyclist, traffic here can be a little terrifying. There are very few bike lanes and car drivers just don't seem to be used to looking out for cyclists. But with flashing lights on my bicycle and bright yellow shirts I've stayed alive so far. Sugar is just everywhere you wouldn't expect it. The Swedes already have a very sweet tooth, so I was used to it to a certain extent from my year in Sweden but this is a whole new level. Everything sweet is even sweeter and even things that normally aren't sweet are here. Most bread tastes more like cake to me. But you just have to find your way around it and a lot of it can be avoided by buying fresh ingredients. That is a great plus here though with farmer's markets around town every day selling fresh fruits and vegetables. Especially the fruits you can not get grown locally in Europe are of course especially exciting for me like fresh bananas, pineapples and mangoes.
So far I've been really happy here. I think that on the long run, I will probably be drawn back to more northern areas and into a less urban/touristy environment. But I am sure that this year here will be an amazing experience for life and I am very much looking forward to having the time to actually explore the area in the not too far future.
Big Changes (Moving to Hawaii)
In just a few days I will be moving to Hawaii to work on my Master’s thesis for a year. This is going to be a great adventure but I will surely miss Gothenburg and my friends and family in Europe.
A lot of people already know and now that it's almost here, I thought, I'd write a little about the big change coming up in my life: moving to Hawaii. For a year. Almost an entire 12 months. Yes, I can barely grasp that myself. Just a few more days of holidays at my parents' and then it is off to the opposite side of the planet. But of course I won't be there on holidays but I will be working on my thesis to complete my Master's program a the University of Gothenburg. So how did I get to this?
About one year ago, I began my Master's studies at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden in Marine Science (MSc.) with a focus on marine chemistry. The original plan was to stay for the entire two-year program but when I began looking for thesis projects, it became evident that there would not be a project in the specific area I wanted to work on in Gothenburg. So I began looking around for other research groups and came across the laboratory of Prof. Brian Glazer at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. And he actually agreed to host and supervise me for a thesis project.
Research work at sea:
Now the big move is ahead and I am very excited but of course there is also a sad side to it with leaving Gothenburg. After ten months I had just begun to really feel at home, know the area and formed good friendships. And Gothenburg is a wonderful city! It is the perfect place for me with so many parks, water bodies, and forests right in the city, not to speak of the wilderness and the archipelago just outside the city borders. And of course the university, my study program and the community of students are just amazing. It takes a while to get to know a new area, so it is a bit of a pity to leave just yet.
To mention just a few highlights of my favorite places in and around Gothenburg, there would be Jonsered with the adorable white- fronted dippers (see my blog on them here) and Torslandaviken, a lake just west of Gothenburg full of bird life including the little ringed plovers that let me take a few amazing images this spring. Then of course there is the beautiful granite boulders of the Swedish west coast and just next to the university building were I studied the botanical gardens and Änggårdsberget nature reserve. I will surely miss Gothenburg, but most importantly of course my friends and family here in Europe.
A few images taken during the past year in and around Gothenburg:
But I can hardly complain about that. I am sure that living on Hawaii will be an amazing experience particularly since I have so far largely lived and traveled only in northern areas with limited experience in southern Europe. Apart from the research cruise in the Pacific Ocean in 2016/17 where I hardly saw any land (see my blog about that here), I have not actually been outside of Europe ever before. And so I got to have the "pleasure" of going through a visa application for the first time in my life. I come from Germany and bureaucracy comes right after cars and beer for us. But astonishingly nothing I ever had to do with in Germany remotely compared to the mountains of paperwork you have to complete to get a visa to the country of the wild and free. Apart from that there were of course also other challenges like finding a room and funding for this project (living on Hawaii is not cheap and my parents can't pay for that). But I somehow managed to get it all sorted so now I'm free to go with the only challenge remaining being a 24 h flight in an economy seat (I am almost 2 m tall) and learning American units. Oh and battling that nasty little cold that I of course had to get just these few days before departure.
Of course I will occasionally write updates about my life in Hawaii, my research work and the photos I will make over there.
Because this website is mostly focused on my photography, I decided to only put a small description of my planned research work at the end of this blog for interested people. So what will I actually do? My research topic are diurnal biogeochemical cycles in a seawater-fed pond characterized by anoxygenic photosynthesis. This means that there are organisms that use the sunlight to build up organic material similarly to plants and algae but with the difference that they do not produce oxygen during this process. This creates a unique environment of very low oxygen concentration and studying such a system may give valuable insight into the early development of photosynthesis in earths history and the processes present also in other systems characterized by extreme oxidation/reduction gradients like for example hydrothermal vents at the seafloor. My focus will be determining the oxidation partners involved in this particular system and how these photosynthetic processes change the chemistry of the water during day and night as sunlight is present or absent. I find this a truly fascinating topic and I am of course more than happy to be able to work in an area that is actually interesting to me at a place like this.
The Wrong Time to Visit Lofoten
This winter I spent one week on the famous Lofoten islands in Northern Norway. The weather was miserable throughout the trip and I hardly got any great images, but it was still a great experience and now I know what to do better next time.
The beautiful coast near the village of Å.
It is time for another travel report, this time to the famous Lofoten in northern Norway. Though there is not too much to report on. Unfortunately, the weather was miserable throughout the trip and I didn't really get any great pictures to show off. This could be all to say here, but although photography is almost always the focus of my travels, it is not the only thing that matters and it was a worthwhile experience nonetheless.
The iconic houses of Hamnøy at night.
If you have seen any significant amount of nature and landscape pictures in your life, you have definitely seen a picture from the Lofoten islands before. Their steep mountains falling off directly into the sea are one of the most iconic subjects for landscape photographers on this planet. Usually these pictures then go with the mesmerizing green aurora borealis in the sky above or the pastel colored pink skies formed by the long sunrise-sunset transitions during the arctic spring and fall. I had wanted to go there for a long time and even more so after my great summer trip in arctic Norway, so this winter it was the time. I knew that December and January are not the ideal time for a winter trip on Lofoten due to the humid oceanic climate. But my winter break is short and the time from Christmas to short after New Year's was the only free window in my schedule for a longer trip in a while.
This time however, I was not alone. My friend Steph - despite not having any experience in the North - wanted to take on the challenge and joined me on this winter camping trip in the Arctic. I do like to be alone in nature as it allows me to really take in the surrounding, be free to think and focus on taking photos and just enjoying the moment. But being out with friends is amazing as well of course! Particularly in situations like having continuous bad weather, it is very valuable to have someone else around. I can tell you, being stuck in a cold moist tent for several days in a row can be very frustrating and borderline depressing when you're alone! But this time even though I did not have any great photo opportunities, we could still have a good time there.
The tent at night looking over the Reinefjord and weak polar lights displaying during New Year's night.
After the looong journey by train and bus to the far North, we spent the week of time we had in the Southwest of the island group, in the area of Reine. We began our hike at the famous village of Hamnøy with it´s iconic red house against the background of the beautiful mountains there. I had planned to hike most distances but the steep mountain sides in the area largely don't allow that. That was not a big problem as we could take a boat instead, but the weather really made it a challenge. At just above freezing temperature, the snow was always mixed with rain and the moisture made the tent very uncomfortable and feel much colder than it actually was. And even worse, it made the snow extremely soft. Even big snow shoes were not enough to keep us from sinking deep into the wet snow. Just the 200 m ascent up the slope over Reinefjord was already a lot more exhausting than the 600 m I did in one day in the powder snow of Abisko National Park last year.
And rain and snow don't come out of nothing, they come out of clouds. We only had one clear night and day during the whole tour. The rest of the time it was continuously cloudy and grey. Daylight is extremely scarce in the arctic winter anyways and with those clouds, the dull light did not let me take any great pictures of the amazing landscape. We did at least get to see some polar lights during the night of New Year's eve. Though the photo is not a good representation of what we actually saw as they were too weak for the human eye to see the color.
But despite the weather, I was deeply impressed by the fascinating landscape and the beautiful coastal villages of Lofoten and I will definitely return there. Then at a better time of the year and with better preparation for the local conditions.
I also exposed a few pictures on black & white film with my analogue camera. I am excited to see how those turned out and if that may be something I could include more regularly in my photography in the future.
At the harbor of Å.
As a little bonus, I shot this panorama of the beautiful city of Stockholm at night during the stopover there on our way north.
The water ouzels of Jonsered
I went back to the water ouzels at Jonsered and got some more pictures of these amazing birds!
I am writing this as a follow-up to my last blog. I already told you about the water ouzels or white-fronted dippers near Jonsered, just East of Göteborg, but since then I have been there two more times, got a lot better pictures and from being a big fan of these adorable birds, I have entirely fallen in love. Normally I wouldn't write such a mini blog, but I felt that this would be the best format to show these images.
Last weekend we went to Jonsered again, to see if we could get some better pictures... and we did, the water level of the river had risen, so we had to go upstream to find a place to get to the shore and managed to actually get quite close. I am leaving for winter break on Friday, so that would have been the last time. But then on Monday it finally snowed properly here. I just had to get out, so yesterday I started extra early, finished uni by noon and got on the train to Jonsered to take some pictures.
And it was so worth it! I spent hours there just observing the dippers as they were flying along the river, fighting out their territories and hunting in the water. It is just so adorable to see how they dive straight into the running water and come up at a totally different place. And as a grand finale - I was starting to freeze - one of them just sat on a fallen tree next to shore. And while I was getting closer and closer with the camera, shooting through the root stock, it just kept sitting there in the snow, singing, stretching its wings and letting me take a bunch of nice photos. I am looking forward to coming back next year and hopefully meet the dippers again!
If you like the water ouzels but don´t want to read the other blog just for that, here are the pictures from my first visit to Jonsered again:
Paradise in the Neighborhood
You don´t always have to travel far for amazing outdoor experiences, there are amazing places just around the corner, that we just don´t appreciate enough!
The view over Göteborg from Ramberget
Almost all the pictures on my site stem from travels in Germany or abroad and that is also what I usually write about. We often appreciate foreign environments much more than our homes, yet our surroundings can have so much to offer!
This year, I moved to Sweden to do my Master's Studies in Marine Science in Göteborg. I knew there were probably a lot of nice spots around, but with the transition to living in a new city in a different country, I never really found the time to go out, explore and take photos. In my defense, my studies are actually quite time demanding and the weather of Göteborg can at times be not the most motivating factor to go out. But once I did, I realized that I should have done that much earlier. I don't want to write about motivational issues though but about the beautiful places around. And it starts immediately within the city here.
The title image of this post is a simple panorama that I shot last month from Ramberget, a small mountain just on the other side of the river from city center. Actually, another student texted me because she had seen my pictures, so we met there to observe the local magpies. Magpies are just adorable creatures and very intelligent birds. You can find her pictures of them here, it´s worth a look!
Typical granite on the island Hönö at the Swedish west coast in the evening sun.
The following weekend I really wanted to get out, so I just packed up my stuff, took my camera, my tent and my sleeping bag and got on the bus to the northern archipelago of Göteborg. I went to Hönö, one of the bigger islands because it is easily accessible by bus and ferry and it seemed like there might be some nice landscapes around. And there are. The Swedish west coast is characterized by bleak granite rocks, with all edges washed off by the elements. These rocks are just beautiful with all these fascinating structures and patterns. I find it quite challenging however, to capture these sceneries with the camera. There are just very few large scale patterns, leading lines or anything that would make for a nice, scenic composition. So at sunset I ended up focusing on a rather intricate study of the texture of the granite in the evening sun and I am quite pleased with the result.
And finally, a true highlight for me was last Sunday. A friend had seen online, that there were white-fronted dippers seen near Jonsered and asked me whether I would like to go there and look for them. The dippers, also called water ouzels, are typical winter guests in northern Germany, where I come from and I am a huge fan! The water ouzel is actually the only songbird species that is able to swim and they are really really good at it. You can only ever find them at the water, preferably at streams running over rocks that they can use to look out on the hunt. And as soon as they spot their prey, they jump into the rushing water, diving for little animals in the water.
Jonsered is just a 15 minute train ride from Göteborg central station and soon after we arrived, we spotted the first dipper just a few hundred meters upstream at the river. And a little further there were a total of three more of them hunting in the swirling water and even singing beautifully when they thought they were alone. I sneaked down to the water and lying close to the shore actually managed to get some shots from quite close and even caught one dipper just coming out of the water from a dive. I got a little soaked from the wet moss but that was absolutely worth it! The only downside is that although the weather was nice, the sunlight didn't reach down through the trees around the river. That would have put the cherry on the cake, but maybe I will have more luck next time.
From there we went along the shore of lake Aspen with a short fika break (the Swedish version of British afternoon tea) and through the forest towards Stora Ramsjön. These forests seem to come right out of a fairy tale with the moss covered trees and all the little streams just asking to be photographed with long exposures!
And it became even more magical, when we arrived at the lake Stora Ramsjön. It was getting close to the evening (which is about 3:30 pm here at this season) and fog hat formed over the water. There was absolute silence, no single sound and absolutely no movement in the water, making it into a perfect mirror. This mood made it an almost surreal experience to stand at the shore of the lake and take the picture of that lonely branch sticking out of the water.
Fog over lake Stora Ramsjön near Göteborg, Sweden in absolute silence on a beautiful autumn day.
But so far, I have only told you how beautiful my surrounding here in Göteborg is and certainly only a fraction of the people reading this are living here, too. The point I am trying to make though is, that it is really a matter of perspective. Looking back, I know that there are so many beautiful places and landscapes around my home back in Germany and also around Bremen, where I spent three years for my Bachelor's. But I hardly ever really tried to capture that in my photos. Almost none of the pictures in my gallery are from close to home although there would have been so many opportunities. And what area do you know better than your own home? I want to change my perspective about my own surroundings and I hope this might be some motivation. You don´t always need to travel far for great outdoor experiences but they can be just around the corner!
Nico's Blog
Here I write mostly about my travels and occasionally about other experiences I have in nature and photography.