Photo practice

The day started with a beautiful light, full of great shadows that made a fantastic effect in the snow. I was lucky to find for the first time, tracks of an otter. Here, the otters slide in the snow and aim for the water. You can clearly see the swoop of the sliding and suddenly you see the marks of its paws! I also had the pleasure of seeing a perfectly marked print of an Elk (Alces alces) which usually go around scrapping the trees.

Roads here are full of warning signs to alert people for elks crossingthe road. Apparently, that happens very often! I saw it happening only once, but at that one time 4 elks showed up!

Vesterålen is full of wildlife and, although birds here don't sing much, you can have great close up encounters with fantastic animals!

Norway Wildlife

The first morning in Norway, just after you wake up, what do you think you can hear? Absolutely nothing...Well, maybe some magpies, but not all that crackle and mix of bird songs that I am used to hear in Lisbon. There, birds even sing at night! Here, not so much...you may be lucky enough to hear the white-tailed eagles, but when it comes to birds so far I haven't heard any special songs. Perhaps birds here spend less energy in singing and more energy in gathering food - that's my theory. But one thing that Norway has that not so many places have, is a great light. No matter which time of day it is, you can go outside and be dazzled with how fast it changes and wonderful everything looks, especially with tonnes of snow around you. So, that will be the plan for today - go out with my compact and practice nature photography, so that I can capture the best of this wonderful light, and hopefully some wildlife too! It is very often to look outside from the window and see an eagle just circling around followed by sea gulls! Apparently, sea gulls don't like eagles and chase them away from where maybe they have their young. Eagles are known here for also taking cats! So, don't leave your cat outside when you know there is an eagle around.

Tonight I will post some photos for you to comment on. I will try to go around and take photos at sunset, but usually here animals are most active at sunrise. Wish me luck!