“Blue Bird” on NaturePhotoStories.com
Read more about how this little beauty came to be. A family outing in Covid times sometimes yields more than anticipated.
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Japan Diary – Day 8
Japan Diary – Day 8
Back in Kushiro and the Japanese cranes. Not the best of conditions with sunshine and not so many cranes. Sunshine and white birds doesn’t really go well together for photography. Sunshine in general is not the best for us to be honest. We want clouds!!! But you have to work with what you have and adapt to the conditions or go home. I decided to work with a type of photography that I personally love. Abstracts… For the technique I use the sunshine doesn’t really matter since i am not that interested in getting the fine details of the feathers etc etc. So day 8 was used to create wildlife art 🙂
Japan Diary – Day 7
Japan Diary – Day 7
Last morning with the eagles today. Yet another set of conditions… The pack-ice has moved too much eastwards, towards the Russian controlled Kuril Islands where the boats cannot go. This means that the eagles stay mostly around the harbour area. So totally different set of images again. The crew of the boats worked hard to get the eagles to dive for fish or to come close to the boat, but as always with nature you never know whats going to happen. Today the eagles seemed a bit laid back. Maybe not hungry enough after a few days of intense feeding in the pack-ice. Who knows… After some work we managed to get quite a few diving for the fish. Although, not as intense as previous mornings, in the end we walked away with quite a few images of the eagles after all.
After a lovely lunch with Japanese BBQ we packed all the gear in the cars again for the 3 hours drive back to Kushiro where we have another day with the lovely cranes before we head back to Tokyo and the Snow Monkeys.
Japan Diary – Day 6
Japan Diary – Day 6
So… An early wake-up again… 04:15. Eagles on the schedule once more. Yesterday we had “optimal” conditions with no clouds and a beautiful sunrise. The conditions this morning were different – cloudy and foggy. Some would claim the conditions were not good but i see them as different with new opportunities. Different conditions pose different challenges and opportunities which will result in different images. Useless having the same images as the morning before in my humble opinion.
The rest of the day we didn’t have any photography planned. We needed a few extra hours of rest and to go through the images of previous days. I find it useful to study the work from the days before to see what I can do differently in the coming sessions, study settings of successful shots to replicate them in similar situations etc etc.
Goodnight!
Japan Diary – Day 5
Japan Diary – Day 5
Early start this morning. Alarm set for 4:15 and we’re in eagle-land… Incredible… Around 150 eagles around our boat this morning… A Mecca for wildlife photographers. So… before the excitement takes over too much. Let me explain. Basically we go out with a boat into the pack ice in the Sea of Okhotsk to the east of Hokkaido to photograph Steller’s sea eagles. After 10-15 minutes we reach the pack ice where the eagles land on top of the ice. From the boat they throw fish for the eagles so that we can photograph them properly. All set up by Wild Nature fotoresor
A pretty awesome sunrise, 150 of one of the largest eagles in the world, pack ice and a crew that is working hard for us photographers. Cannot get much better.
In the afternoon we left for Notsuke Peninsula an hours drive to the south. There we were searching for Sika deer and Foxes. The peninsula is literally littered with deer. They are everywhere and reminded me of being on the African savannah. During the few hours we were there we saw at least 6-7 foxes and some of them actually came up to us. Thats what happens folks when hunting is not allowed. Wildlife thrives and you can actually approach them and they are much less scared of you than normally.
At 16:00 we left Notsuke and 3 of us decided to go back for another try with the fish owl that we failed to see the night before. And we were not disappointed. At around 20:15 it decided to appear and show off its size and those gorgeous bright yellow eyes. As a bonus, 10 minutes after its appearance, it decided to give us a bonus performance. Some great images and all of a sudden the tiredness after a long day of photography just vanished. Back home, a quick hot bath in the thermal springs at the hotel and straight to bed. Tomorrow eagles again!
Japan Diary – Day 4
Japan Diary – Day 4
The main task for day 4 is to move base to Rausu which is on the north-east side of Hokkaido. We start off with some more swan-shooting though. Before breakfast we walked down to the lake to try to catch the swans when they come flying in but it was a very fogy morning and the swans didn’t actually show up. We suspect they waited for the fog to subside before coming closer to shore. After breakfast we packed all our stuff in the cars and had a few more hours with the swans before it was time to leave Lake Kussharo and relocate to Rausu. In Rausu it is mostly Stellar’s sea eagles we are after.
Once we arrived to Rausu we checked in to our new hotel and then we made our way to try to photograph the largest owl in the world – Blakiston’s fish owl. This is a very different type of photography than what we have done so far this trip. This is photography from a type of hide. The lady that owns the place has been feeding the owls since she was a small girl and has secured many generations of this owl. The species is endangered so this lady has done a huge conservation effort on her very own.
We stayed in the cold for 5 hours until 22:00 but unfortunately the owl never came. We had to leave to get some sleep for an early morning the day after. Some of us decided to go back in the evening the day after.
Tomorrow eagles!!!
My Puffin-image on “Promote Shetland”
I am happy that one of my puffin-images today featured on Promote Shetland’s Facebook page. Puffins are quite hard to catch in flight but after MANY tries I managed to get what I wanted.
This is the full image
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