Scenes from Vrango

 At the moment I am putting together a portfolio for stock photo sites in the hope that over the course of the year ahead I will increase the income from my photography. Whether I do or not remains to be seen but it will help me to focus on quality (I might have said this already in a recent post, I can't recall, I have been asleep since then) and improving as a photographer. As I have not been out much to get new pictures I am revisiting my older files and I am pleasantly surprised by many of the images I have put together over the years. I am also really pleased with the memories that come flooding back too. So most of the pictures I will share for a while at least will be from the archives.

These pictures were shot in Sweden in the summer of 2018. As I am writing this I am listening to the album Treeless Plain by Australian band The Triffids and the song playing right now is "Hell of a Summer" (click on the song title to listen for yourself).

I was on a road trip around Europe with my youngest son and we fulfilled an ambition to visit Sweden. We drove up from Copenhagen in Denmark across the Oresund Bridge which was a fantastic experience and then up to Gothenburg which was possibly the highlight of the trip (although there were several highlights to be honest) and while there we took a trip to Vrango, one of the islands in the archipelago close by. It was a really hot day and we had great fun walking around the island and enjoying the sun and the brightly coloured buildings that were all around the village and the harbour.

I have shared a mixture of colour and black and white images and while I like all of these photos and I would often prefer the black and white images today I much prefer the colour pictures because they are far mor evocative of the overall atmosphere on the island which although it was a quiet refuge from the busy city was still vibrant and uplifting.

Island Life

Canon EF 24 - 105 mm F/4 IS USM

ISO 100   28 mm   F/4.0   1/800 sec

ISO 100  32 mm   F/11   1/400 sec

I just love the colours in these pictures and looking at them I feel drawn back to Vrango. I hope that looking at them you also can see why I loved this place so much.

On Saturday I was chatting to a couple who had just come back from what they described as a disappointing cruise and they told me that they didn't think much of Sweden. I guessed they hadn't been to Gothenburg or the archipelago because if they had they would have fallen in love with the place just as I did.

AReal Treat

Here is a little teaser of what I have to share in future posts after my day out on Skomer in Pembrokeshire.

I have been before and shared pictures of Puffins before but I really wanted to go back and experience this wonderful island reserve again.

Puffins are not the main inhabitants of the island, that honour goes to the Manx Shearwater of which there are 300,000 breeding pairs, but since they're mostly nocturnal we didn't get to see any. Puffins however have a special charm and I absolutely love them so here is just one for today as a treat and I will get round to sharing more shortly.

I did also get some nice pictures of other birds across the island and some grey seals too so I am definitely a happy man.

Now I have to get planning my next trip...

In A Flap

The last of my pictures from Skomer (well the last that I am posting to my blog anyway) and I hope you will agree that they're pretty good. I have really enjoyed sharing my photos from that trip I think they are among my most favourite shots since I started this blog.

Tomorrow I will be choosing something very different and then later in the week I will begin a series of very colourful pictures from a recent day out which I can't wait to share with you.

Island Life

So after a week of different critters from Skomer I have finally got back to the whole reason I visited the island in the first place. The Atlantic Puffin. 

I was going to post puffins today and then tomorrow I was going to move on to something completely different but trying to narrow down my selection I came up with nine pictures and that was just too much for one post, a little bit of puffin overkill. 

So for today here are four fantastic shots and tomorrow you will have to come back for the other five. I promise that you won't be disappointed because they're just as special as these and I know how much some of my regular visitors loved the earlier pictures so these are for you.

Bluebells and a Random Rabbit

I hadn't expected to see bluebells on Skomer but there were two areas where the ground was carpeted with masses and masses on them, It was like a blue lawn as you can see in the first of today's three pictures.

The other thing I wasn't expecting to see was an Iron age settlement but actually there are several round houses and walls and other signs of settlement scattered all across the island. Standing in one roundhouse it was possible to see the where the central fire would have been and it was easy to imagine the inhabitants seated around the walls talking about their day. It must have been a pretty bleak and unforgiving place to live. The second of these pictures shows the remains of an iron age structure.

The final picture is obviously of a big black bunny, with the most amazing brown eyes. It was just resting within the ruins of an old farm building in the centre of the island and I couldn't resist taking the picture. I have never seen wild black rabbits before but on Skomer there were a few of them as well as lots of the more familiar brown that you might see on roadside verge bunnies.

A Summer Visitor

Something quite different for today and something much harder to photograph than the puffins.

This is a breeding pair of Wheatears that were flitting about the scrubby ground and burrows of the Manx Shearwaters sleeping below my feet. 

With my long lens (Tamron 150- 600mm f5 - 6.3) which is quite heavy, the strong wind and the speed at which these little birds were darting around getting a clear shot was incredibly difficult. I don't think I have really nailed it with these pictures but these are the best I could do on the day. I think I needed to be settled down and possibly in a hide to get better than these but as I had never seen these birds before I wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to get the shot. It has inspired me to do more proper wildlife photography.

Fratercula arctica

I have rather a lot of photos of the Atlantic Puffins on Skomer, well with so many to see it would have been rude not to take them, and it is tempting now to post them all over the next week. 

However I don't want to overload you so after today I will change things and for a day or two I will post a few different subjects.  You can be sure however that because I am so pleased to have such wonderful images of these wonderful birds I will definitely be choosing some more puffin pictures for you.

As I said yesterday this trip was the fulfillment of a long held ambition and getting up close to some of these birds (less than a metre away in some cases) was actually quite an emotional experience for me. Call me soft if you like but I know I was not the only one affected in this way. While taking this group of pictures I was talking to a Polish photographer who also quite clearly couldn't believe that he was there, and he was almost rooted to the spot. There is really something magical about the Puffin.

A Firm Favourite

Yesterday I promised that I had a real treat in store for today, and I defy you to say that I have let you down...

A couple of weeks ago I got to visit Skomer an island bird reserve in Pembrokeshire, managed by The Wildlife Trust of South & West Wales. It is only accessible for a few hours per day and visitor numbers are limited to a maximum of 250 people per day. It is a short boat ride from Martins Haven to the island and then a steep climb from the landing point to what is a wonderful home to colonies of seabirds and many other species of birds. On the day I visited there were only about 100 visitors to the island and it felt like a real privilege to be there. I enjoyed speaking to other photographers (about the birds and about kit) and to some of the warden volunteers whose knowledge really added something to the experience. 

I was especially keen to visit to see the Puffins that were breeding on the island and to be able to get up so close to these iconic birds was a bit of a bucket list item for me. Puffins are on the international Red List of Endangered Species and with decreasing populations they are vulnerable to extinction; although seeing the numbers on Skomer in their burrows, on the cliffs, in the air and on the water it is hard to imagine their total demise. It underlines the importance of places like Skomer where they  enjoy a degree of protection.

So for today I hope you enjoy the three pictures above. I really love them and in the coming days I will share some more. I have pictures of several of the other species from around the island too, and even some landscape shots to share so make sure you come back to see.