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!

Space dynamics

In viking lands it is very often that one feels dazzled by the beauties of nature. It is so different from the hussle and bussle of the city...You wake up in the morning and just feel purely amazed by your surroundings. Mountains, fjords, and all the wildlife that comes with it, just make a true nature lover feel at home. One of the things that still dazzles me are the northern lights. Visible only at high latitudes, these gorgeous events caused by Sun activity remain one of the wonders of nature.

I found this website that describes and updates solar activity:

http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/resources/blog.php

http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/mission/science/prediction.php

as you can see, solar flares have been very intense recently, and I hope I am outside when the northern lights happen.

Also, you may be able to find some other curious things up in the night sky

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/science/index.cfm?SciencePageID=47

the Cassini spacecraft has been going around Saturn and is going to pass through its largest moon - Titan - in 3 days! Curiously, one of the moons is called Pan :P

So, keep that in mind and don't forget to have your eyes in the sky when you go out at night!

It's just life...

There are days that you wake up in the morning, look outside and think - what am I doing here? How did I get here? What am I going to do?

Well, those are the questions that make you move forward. Of course, they bring lots of pain and despair, but when you get there, when you reach that point, it will all make sense. I don't mean like you should have daily doubts about yourself, which you shouldn't, but you should always try to push yourself further and still be happy with what you have.

I have been under this philosophical state of mind, where I get like this every single day, every single morning. That's what you get when you don't have a job - you think too much...You always wish for the best and try to keep yourself positive, but that's hard work! The world spins faster every time and you see yourself always going around and around with nowhere to go. How do you get out of this cicle? How do you break it? How do you make your dreams work when everything seems to be against you? When you make your choices for love, but they do not seem to favour your professional life? How do you move forward when everything goes around and remain untouchable?

Part of the answer is to watch british tv shows, get inspired, contact people, and always approach someone new with a smile on your face. You know what else helps? FRIENDS! yeah! of course!

Just try not to run out of money :P

Oh! and just so you know, my work with Fin Whales in the Bay of Biscay with be presented by me at the European Cetacean Conference in Cadiz in March!

Christmas

Christmas - that magic blanket that wraps itself about us, that something so intangible that it is like a fragrance. It may weave a spell of nostalgia. Christmas may be a day of feasting, or of prayer, but always it will be a day of remembrance - a day in which we think of everything we have ever loved. - Augusta E. Rundel

Merry Xmas everyone! May Santa reward you with lovely presents and a beautiful life, full of adventures and marine mammal sightings!

Migrations

"Animal migration is a phenomenon far grander and more patterned than animal movement. It represents collective travel with long-deferred rewards. It suggests premeditation and epic willfulness, codified as inherited instinct." (David Quammen, 2010.NG)

These fascinating seasonal movements are carried by a handful of species that have developed this Darwinian way to perpetuate themselves through the generations. Oriented by temperature, light, currents, or even magnetic fields, these animals have proved to be an example of evolution and a great source of knowledge, especially in changing environments.

Migratory patterns usually involve special behaviours of preparation and arrival, and require great allocations of energy. From vertical migrations of copepods to the great migration of the monarch butterfly, or of the sperm whale, what drives these animals is truly a sense of larger purpose. It is stamped on their genetic code and they only know the way to go as they are moving.

Let's take the example of sea turtles;

The loggerhead turtle swims to specific beaches around the world to lay its eggs. After all eggs are safe in a sand hole, the mother leaves and will only come back to the same place a few years later. The younglings are born without any parental control and go to the water as soon as they come out of the egg. When they enter the water, there is an immediate trigger that tells them where to go and eventually, when they are fully grown, they come back to the same beach where there were born.

The same goes for the monarch butterflies, which take several generations to get to Canada where they produce a super generation of monarch butterfly that alone will return to the place it all started - Mexico.

It is essential that we understand the importance of these species and their migratory behaviours. This is not a topic of general culture and basic knowledge of our surroundings. It can contribute for a better management of our habitats. In a changing environment, their sensory cues may be masked and thus, their migrations delayed or advanced. Also, the seasonal presence of these animals will contribute for a greater diversity in the receiving environment, thus reducing inbreeding and loss of genetic variation. Changes in migratory patterns should be seen as a warning to humans that there is a great change in the environment that could also affect us.

Migrations are a fascinating topic and are a great source of knowledge that, if put in good use, can improve the state of our ecosystems.

dreams...

Do you have dreams and hopes?Do you have plans for the future?Are those plans driven by love or career?

Since very young I had great hopes for my future. I am a scientist, a biologist, a student of life, but mostly, a student of marine life and hope I will always be one. I focused on marine mammal conservation and that is my truest, deepest dream; to work with whales, dolphins, seals, etc, until I am very old and cranky.

But sometimes...panic!!!!!!!!!!!

It's so hard to work on what you love, on what you have dreamed since you are little. There are so many tumbles in the way, so many obstacles that force you to stop and reconsider what you are doing and force you to make some choices.

But where does love come in all this?

I was once told that you can have only one of the two. If you choose career, you will never be fully dedicated to love; and if you choose love, you will never have a good evolution in your career.

That is b.s.

If you truly love someone, you are willing to give up anything for that other person, even risking your career. However, if the other person loves you back the same way, you choices can be made together to make your dreams come true. That's the way it should be for me.

Of course, your dreams shouldn't just be limited to the career, they should include a family, a house, a dog, anything you want and wish to have someday.

What do you think?Does having one thing compromises the other? Does it depend on the job or just on the person?