It's fall, and that means it's a good time for salamanders.

  The fall is here, that's for sure. As we are waiting for the colorful foliage it might be an good idea to go out and look for fire salamanders. That's what I did yesterday, and I even found one. I was hoping for a couple, but what can you do, if it's one then it's one. This poisonous black and yellow fellow was waiting at the base of an birch three. Usually I'm used to move my subjects a bit to make the image, but for this guy it was just a minimal touching that was necessary. The weather was pretty humid, almost raining. mist all around and the ground was wet... just perfect for this type of tailed-amphibians. Hope to find more of these in the coming few days, they are anyway quite beautiful animals, and as a bonus they don't move too fast so they are thankful subjects when the shutter speeds are slow. By the way, one of the images are made with a smartphone, can you guess which one?

Common toad

  When you encounter a snake in the wild you have to be fast and I mean really, otherwise you'll end up with zero photos. What happened to me last weekend is exactly that, no photos. While walking on a rocky beach, I stumbled across this beautiful and a fairly large black grass snake. Just be fast and grab it! That's what I tried, and normally it would've been an easy task, but this time I had a backpack weighting some 15 kilos on my back and between me and the snake there was this tree branch. Ducking down and moving fast forward I was so sure I'll grab it. But no, my tripod, which was fastened to my backpack got stuck in the tree branch. Three seconds and I was loose, but then my shoe got stuck between the rocks... and the snake was gone. Bummer!!! I was just soooo disappointed. I was just about to move on, when I saw this large common toad. Not really what I wanted to shoot or what I was expecting to find that evening, but as the snake escaped I just had to suck it up and settle with a beautiful toad. At least they are quite slow moving and easy to handle.

  

Smelly, but rewarding photo shoot...

  Snakes don't like to be photographed. Everybody who've handled snakes know that these, mostly shy animals tend to escape immediately when they have a chance. This is what happens usually, but then there are those rare occasions when an individual snake seem not to be too bothered about your presence. I encountered this type of a snake this week. Of course when I found it, it first stared at me for a sec and then tried to slither away fast, but this time I was faster. My experience with grass snakes is that they don't bite, even if they could, but instead they release a foul smelling surprise from their butt hole and the bad guy who dared to touch it ends up smelling yucky and escapes shocked. My friend in the image wasn't an exception, and immediately when I started to move it to a more suitable location it tried to sprinkle me with its anal odour. After the smelly shower, which seemed to last awhile, my hands were covered in a slimy brown solution and a very strong aroma. Nice! Pouring its smelly surprise on me, probably made it a bit exhausted and it calmed down a bit. Under my cap, which I placed on the ground, the snake coiled, and I took a small break to wipe my hands in the grass just to make the smell go away, at least most of it. Then we were ready for a photo session. Because my friend was so calm and didn't try to escape, I tried to shoot it from different angles...

             

Green lizard

  It's so easy to just walk by all kinds of junk people are leaving here and there. Anyway it's just garbage, right? For me pieces of plywood, tiles, bricks, even old garment is a possible treasure chest. Usually not, but sometimes yes, you fiend an interesting bug or even a frog or lizard under junk. Today for instance, I decided to turn over this old piece of plywood. No high hopes, I'd turned it over before too, but you can always give a try. And there it was lurking, a green lizard in all its glory. First I thought it's dead, because it didn't move, but I guess it was too surprised to escape, so with a fast move I grabbed it. All this happened while on a walk with dogs, and they'd be very happy to have a tiny small lizard as a supper. So what to do? Just next to the plywood there is a tree, so I decided to lift the lizard on a branch and make a picture of it there, out of reach of the dogs. The critter didn't like the idea and fast moved on the other side of the tree. My thought was that my photo session was over. Just a careful look on the other side... and yes, there it was still, and even on a better place, just in the shine of the warm evening sun.

Finally snakes (hot spot #2)

  Just a small stop at one of my favorite spots. A tiny little river and its surroundings. Pretty good place for snakes, lizards and frogs and even terrapins. Today was my seson start for snakes. It's just a harmless dice snake, but still a snake. Ended up with stinking hands, one broken nail and the snake got tangled with my camera strap, but we made a few images and we had pretty fun too, or at least I had.

  

Tree frog

  Mid April and still haven't found a single snake, not even a grass snake. Lizards are out, frogs too, but not snakes. Probably they are moving, but I'm having hard times to find one. Yesterday though I managed to find one of my favorite frogs, a European tree frog. Almost missed it because it was attached to this dry old twig sticking out from a small ditch. The good thing was that the twig was grey so the bright green amphibian was visible and cought my eye almost accidentally, the bad thing was that the place were the twig was poking out from the water was quite wet and difficult to reach. No chance to use a tripod and I didn't wear rubber boots. So my only option was to shoot freehand and make my legs wet.

Just ugly and beautiful

  In tiny small ditches you can find a tiny little warty creature known as yellow bellied toad. The belly side is screaming yellow, but the back side is brown and warty and thus it's easy to miss one when you walk by. One interesting feature in this creature is its heart-shaped pupil. When you catch one, you can see the so called unkenreflex, the poor thing arching it self to show as much as possible of the bright underside and telling I'm toxic, don't eat me. Just a lovely little animal.

My hotspots: Hotspot #1

  Read today a column written by Bill Oddie. In his column,which you can read in the March 2015 issue of BBC Wildlife magazine, he wrote about hotspots. This got me thinking of my hotspots, where do I go for wildlife. It's interesting that not all the places where I usually go, look like they would be places where you can marvel wildlife. So I thought it would be a nice thing to share a couple of images from "my" wildlife hotspots and tell a little about them.

  You don't have to go always faraway for critters. One of my favorite places is only five minutes walk away from the door. At first glance it's just a big abandoned parking place for cars, surrounded by factories and a tiny small forest. Sadly other people have noticed the same place too, but not because of the fauna. Some people use it as a place for dumping their garbage, some use it as a big loo, and some come there to fornicate. All this means human excrement's, used condoms, toilet paper and wet wipes here and there. Yes, people can be quite disgusting! But after you get over with the ugly stuff and watch out where you step you can find some pretty cool animals at this spot. So far I've encountered Herman's tortoise, four species of snake, green lizard, frogs, mice, shrews, lots of different kind of invertebrates and birds. Plus the flora is pretty abundant too. Some images I've posted previously here at my blog has been made at this nice parking place. Here's a few more images from this week, one showing a marsh frog and two images with a green lizard, and as a final image how the place looks like. In couple of future posts I hope to share with you some other places where I love to do photography and watch wildlife.

           

Unexpected toad

  Because the rainy weather today, I decided to leave my camera at home. What I didn't assume was that we ended up to this tiny pictoresque lake with a few common toads in it. No problemo... use your phone. At least one image of a juicy female toad, waiting for her prince to arrive, not that it wouldn't have been nice to spend a little more time with these interesting amphibians.

The Finish archipelago, what a Place!

 The past couple of weeks haven't been very good when it comes to photography, but I still managed to make a couple of images. Some were shown in the three previous posts, and here will follow a couple more images.

  One of the most beautiful places on this planet, the archipelago of Finland. Lots of things to see and experience.

                           

   One evening we were sitting and stalking elk. Not really the best possible weather, it was pretty cold and dark. Finally one showed up just to eyeball us for a while and then disappearing to the woods.

                     

A few days later I was walking in the woods. I sat on a stump just to relax for awhile when I suddenly heard something moving towards me. Two seconds later three elks where standing there, just about 30 meters from me. Sadly two of them were standing so that it wasn't worth a shutter click.

Roe deer, a pretty common species. Lots of''em  here and there and of course a great subject for photography. One evening we saw a flock with 13 individuals.

Shot even a couple of images of birds. Nothing too fancy, but here's an image of a crested tit.

A sure sign that the spring has arrived. A male and a female frog in amplexus.

Flip it!

  "Flipping" is a term used by field herpers. The word means turning stones and other stuff, even garbage, to see what lies beneath, and the idea is to find snakes, lizards and amphibians. So often you find nothing. Then there are those ant colonies invading places. Sometimes scorpions and other invertebrates, such as beetles are trying to find shelter beneath rocks and sheets of metal. In one of my favorite place there has been this sheet metal piece laying on the ground forever. From time to time I lift it up even if I know that usually there's only ants swarming around under it. During this past week I've lifted this piece of metal up quite a few times and instead of ants I've found black beetles or tiny brown centipedes. After a small walk in the forest today, I came across this same piece of junk again and of course I had to lift it. And what did I find? Two black beetles trying to escape the hard light intruding their home. I placed the cover carefully back, but something drew my attention. First I thought it's a lizard, but instead it was a tiny small newt, probably a smooth newt hiding there. A bit early, but probably this critter had already come to look if the spring has arrived. I placed it on a small rock, made a couple of frames and released it back under the metal lid. So if there is a stone or a piece of junk, flip it! You never know what you might find. Just remember to place the cover carefully back just as it was.

      

10 years of photography: What's most important?

  "It's not just about a photograph, it's the outdoor experience." - Doug Gardner

 What's most important in nature and wildlife photography? For me it's definitely the nature it self. In these ten years I've learned that it's not so important to make that image, but to be there, and just relax and enjoy the surroundings, views, sounds, smells... the whole experience. In the beginning, I so often missed not only the photo, but the moment too. Once I remember how a herd of deer passed us by in the forest, and they were close, really close. What did I do? My camera wasn't ready so I started to make adjustments just to make a nice picture. When I was ready, yes, the deer were gone. No image, but I missed the moment too, and that sucks. So there are times when it's better just to enjoy the creation, sit still, listen, make observations and forget the camera. Like last night for example, great time listening owls and sounds of returning swans, the sounds of spring! (That was it, the last post in this "10 years of photography:...". From March onward I'll try to figure out something else.)

    

10 years of photography: You don't need to go too faraway...

  Travelling here and there with your camera and making photographs of wild places, animals or plants, is just great, who wouldn't love it. But as you dream of your next trip, may it be near or far, don't forget your backyard. Some amazing stuff can be found just a few steps from your door. Even if your pet cat or dog isn't too wild, it's still an animal and a great subject. Small wild critters such as frogs, lizards and mice can be found even in urban areas. And don't forget the insects crawling inside and outside our homes.

 

10 years of photography: The best time of the year for photography

  You can make images whenever you want, no matter the season, winter, summer, fall or spring. However spring is my favorite. Summer is nice, it's warm and lots of cool things around. Fall is colorful. Winter... some like it, I don't, even if you can shoot nice things during the dark and cold months too. Anyway, spring is my favorite. That's when there is so much going on in the nature. First in February everything is slowly waking up from the winter and then suddenly in March and April there is so much to shoot, flowers, insect, nice lime green colors when the trees start get their leaves, so on and so on. Then finally in the May the nature start to be ready for the hot summer months. As long as I can remember the spring has been the best season. One cool thing with the first part of the spring is when you start to find things. There's still a little snow on the ground when the first flowers pop up. On a sunny south or west facing slope you can find the first lizards basking and with a little luck under a rock you can find scorpions or some other cool invertebrates. I just love spring!!!

10 years of photography: Get close! (How close is close enough?)

 "If your pictures aren't good enough, you aren't close enough." - Robert Capa

 There's two ways to get close to your subject. The first one is to use a long lens and to shoot from a decent distance from your subject. This is a good technique when your subject is shy or there's a risk that the critter you are photographing will get nasty and attack, sting or bite you. The other way, the one I prefer, is to physically get close the subject. With tiny little insects this isn't a problem, usually, but with bigger critters, such as snakes, lizards and others this may be a bit of a challenge.

    This Smooth Snake didn't go anywhere when I approached it. It's easy to shoot a mugshot of a snake when using a 150 mm macro lens and the subject is just eyeballing you with no intention of going anywhere.

Using a wide angle lens and getting really close to your subject will yield in even more interesting images, This way you can show, not only the subject, but also its habitat in a nice way. There is though a challenge you have to face when shooting closeups with a wide lens. You have to get pretty close of the animal for a good shot, but it's wort it.

So how close is close enough? You are close enough when your subject pops out, when there isn't any question about what is your main subject. You are probably too faraway if your subject wont be clear for the viewer of the image and you are too close when your subject ran away or you got bitten. 

Those brave ones

  Most of the time I'm usually photographing wildlife just by my self. There's so many people who just aren't interested in getting out there and getting their feet wet. Telling a person that I'm going to look for snakes is an other thing that usually makes people to stay at home, rather than taking a walk with me in the wild. Not that I wouldn't enjoy outdoors just by myself, with only my gear as company, but still, sometimes it's nice to have company, and every now and then there are some brave individuals who are interested to share my passion, not only for photography, but for reptiles too. Here's a couple of images of those brave ones...

Tiny little grass snake

  Probably the last snake for this year...

As it's already a bit cold this small guy didn't even bother to escape.

A tradition for the fall

  Somehow it seems to be hard to find any vipers in the beginning of the season. Probably it's just me, don't know the places etc. But something happens every single fall and it happened today too. We were walking a path, the same path as last year and the year before, and there it is, a nose-horned viper basking and just waiting a photographer to pass by and make a few photos. So here's a couple of images of that photo shoot. Enjoy! I did!