♥♥A Day out 19 January♥♥

♥♥A Day out 19 January♥♥

Frosty and - 23,5 degrees Celsius

 

Lövsund

Hummelvik

 

Oxelösund

Old Oxelösund 

♥♥A Day out 12 January♥♥

♥♥A Day out 12 January♥♥

 Lövsund 

"The swan Serenade"

Whooper Swan (Cygnus cygnus)

  The sight of the graceful swans which Godlike glides on the mirror of the water touches us with 

their beauty both within our hearts and our souls.

H.C Andersen`s fairy tail teaches us something very important;  "ugly duckling" has a difficult 

childhood, becomes bullied, before he become a beautiful swan and finds his true self. 

That become a triumphant victory over those who previously bullied him

However something that seems very "plain", strange or different, can in itself be something 

very interesting unique or divine. As the saying goes; "Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder"  

so " the beauty" is there "to find and see" from the beginning even if some chose "not to see 

or even try to find".

Many times the swans in the magical fairy tails paints the picture of them as if they are floating 

through the centuries, having easy enjoyable life's...

Do they have that easy life we can ask ourselves...however we all know that, 

that picture is not entirely true.

The whooper swan have to fight every day to survive, it takes a lot of energy to be able to 

splash with their feet and a lot of energy to be able to lift their large body with their wings, 

during a long period their legs are too week to be able to hold their body weight...

 and they defend their territory towards other birds, sometimes even until the bitter end.

So their beauty one could say, becomes also their curse...          

Whooper Swan (Cygnus cygnus)

Whooper Swan (Cygnus cygnus)

♥♥ Visitor in my Garden 11 January ♥♥

♥♥ Visitor in my garden♥♥

  11 January

A grey and overcast day 

Great Spotted Woodpecker or Greater Spotted Woodpecker, (Dendrocopos major),

 The first thing I noticed in my garden when I went out from my house was my beautiful visitor

 Great Spotted Woodpecker. When it is becoming cold outside, it is important for some

wild birds to find different seeds and suet treats which are made of a mix of premium 

suet filled with seeds and grains. If you want to give them something extra nice 

you can give them a piece of butter or margarine and raisins. 

Butter and margarine contains a little salt, however not 
more that what birds can eat. 

Other alternatives to give to the wild birds;

Hempseed
Greenfinch, Bullfinch, Chaffinch, Brambling, house sparrow, tree sparrow, 

great tit, blue tit, marsh tit, willow tit.
Sunflower
Greenfinch, Bullfinch, Hawfinch, great tit, nuthatch.

Oats, pieces of bread, boiled unsalted rice
Yellowhammer, house sparrow, dove, pigeon.

Wild bird seed mix, cage-bird seed mix, flaxseed
House sparrow, tree sparrow, chaffinch, Brambling, Greenfinch,  

Redpoll, Siskin, Dunnock.

Beechnuts
Chaffinch, Brambling, nuthatch.

Acorns
Jay, nutcracker, ring dove, nuthatch.

Hazelnuts
Jay, nutcracker, nuthatch, woodpecker.

Peanuts
Most tits, European Nuthatch and siskins.

Tallow, lard, lard, coconut oil
Blue Tit, Great Tit, Goldcrest, woodpecker, jay, magpie, tree creeper.

Apple, pear, banana, berries, checkerberry
Thrushes, waxwing, stare. 

And when you give the birds water, you can use an immersion heater, which can 

be put in the water ( the kind you might have already if you have had an aquarium)

the water should be changed frequently -  use plastic gloves, I use plastic gloves 

also when changing suet balls and when I handle the bird feeders just to be on the 

safe side. I have learned that you should not use hot water from the hot tap,use  

 the cold water from the cold tap instead and make that water tepid.  

♥♥ My absolute Favourites from 2012 ♥♥

♥♥ My absolute Favourites ♥♥

from 2012

 

I still find it difficult to determine whether this is a Rough-legged Buzzard(Buteo lagopus)

also called Rough-legged Hawk in North America or if it is a Common Buzzard(Buteo buteo)

since there are extremely bright Common Buzzards which are called Börringevråk in Sweden, 

those birds are extremely bright. I will try to find out more about this Beauty, however 

until I know for sure, I want to think that this is a Rough-legged Buzzard who was checking 

me and my little dog out. Perhaps she thought that my white little dog was a nice prey to 

catch and eat.     

 This little rascal came to visit me in my garden, it is a red squirrel or Eurasian red

squirrel(Sciurus vulgaris) 

A Beautiful female European Roe deer(Capreolus capreolus) On this shot, it almost

looks like she is having a fun time when I was using her as a model for my shots. 

  

 A Beautiful close shot of a flower in my garden.

The Tawny Owl or Brown Owl(Strix aluco) 

The Beauty of the year 

2012

/ Maria 

A Collection of unpublished shots from 2010

A Collection of 

 * Unpublished Shots from 2010 *

Stendörren Nyköping

 Baltic sea

Lake Barsättern, Skeppsta,

Björnlunda, Gnesta 

Lake Klämmingen, Gnesta

A Day out Saturday 5 January

A Day out  

Saturday 5 January

Visitor in my garden

Eurasian Jay (Garrulus Glandarius)

Today I spotted this years first Eurasian Jay, visiting my new bird feeder station,

he or she mostly stayed at the ground eating the seeds which the other birds

had made fall to the ground. A couple of days before I also spotted a small flock 

of Long-tailed Tit (Aegithalos caudatus) also called Long-tailed Busch Tit, 

they stayed for a quick snack bite of the suet ball and when I had my 

camera ready they were gone.  

 Lövsund

Whooper Swan (Cygnus cygnus)

According to the calculations I found on the internet, the sun was going

down at 15:10 so I decided to head towards Lövsund to see if I could get some 

nice shots of the sunset and hopefully some shots of the Whooper swans  who

stayed in the area.

Whooper Swan (Cygnus cygnus)

The juvenile bird´s plumage is gray-white and the beak is black and white to yellow

with a little tinge of pink, the plumage will not turn white until its first year, or early 

spring during the second year of their life. I have also learned that the juveniles need

large areas of water to live in, when they are still growing, since their body weight 

cannot be supported by their own legs for a while, so they spends much of their 

time in the water swimming and eating.

The sunset was amazing, some times when arriving back home again, I find myself

thinking, after downloading the photos, that the colours were so much better when 

I was standing facing the amazing landscape. There are so many times when I have 

been rather dissapointed when looking at my shots back home again.

Now I know that the main reason to my "disappointment" is that when "I am there 

on  the spot", my own feelings adds to the experience, just because I am there with 

all of my senses, and the connection with what I see, hear feel and smell make the 

experience so incredible. While back at my computer room there are so 

many other things, which create a distraction. Some days I have chosen not to 

download the images when arriving back home again, just because I have felt 

distracted by something else. I have found this strategy to work very well for 

me. Later when I finally felt that "now it is time to download"  I have been able 

to enjoy the whole picture 100%.  

A breathtaking view, taken Saturday 5, downloaded today. 

100%  ;-)

Warm greetings to you all
/Maria