Gray morning and camera shy grouses

I haven't had time to do much (more like any) photography this spring. Today was exceptional in the sense that I managed to go out and even had a friend along. Usually I'm out there alone. It's nice to have someone tag along every now and then, the hours spent alone in the hide can be rather lonesome at times. If nothing else, it's nice to have someone to talk to while waiting for something to happen.

I woke up at 2:30, after sleeping for about three hours. For some reason I did not get to sleep early as I had planned. I made tea for my thermos and stuffed my sandwichbox in my backpack that I had loaded with my gear the previous evening. I turned on the coffee machine to get a few cups of much needed fuel into my system. Just after three my friend Jukka pulled up. Jukkas photocompany pages can be found here. (Finnish only, sorry) We loaded our gear into my car and headed for the swamp. I parked the car at my usual spot and we headed to my hide that I had set up the previous afternoon. After skiing for half an hour in ankle deep slush, we arrived at the hide. It was still pitch dark when we got ourselves and our gear stuffed inside.

As the sun rose, the light increased, but with a low overcast, everything was colored in dull gray tones. To make matters worse, the grouses that we had come to photograph were well too aware of my hide. The first few birds landed at their usual spot right infront of us, but there wasn't enough light for good pictures. A couple of them started to boast at each other and even ruffled each others feathers a bit. They also kept looking towards the hide almost all the time and after spotting some movement of our camera lenses, the whole flock moved further away. It would have been much better if I could have taken the hide out a few days earlier and let the birds get used to it before going out, but I was so busy around the house with family stuff that it just could not be done. In any case, the low hanging cloudlayer made sure that no real nice color tones would be captured today.

Here is a quick sample of this mornings images:

Jukka wrote his views of our trip (still in Finnish) with some nice pictures here. For our next outing I'll get us a larger hide. My little tent was made accommodate just me and my gear and with two photographers, it was cramped to the limit. It fealt great to crawl out and be able to strech my legs and back.