Bad light but great fun

My good freind Staffan Widstrand from Sweden came over to Flatanger for a few days.

As most of you know, I never shoot with my guests. (Mybe with the Musk Ox). I started to feed the Goshawk about 3 weeks ago and the first guests this winter/autum have been doing realy great, all of them. There is a adult Goshawk and she is so much different/better from last winter. So when Staffan asked me to have a go with him I had to say yes:-) So Monday morning the 21th Nov we went down to the hide in the darkness.

Some warm strong cofe is needed, and Staffan is easy to spend some hours with. 0845 we saw the shadow, Goshawk landed on the bait. But it was the young one. Anyway a Goshawk is a Goshawk.


He did not start to eat, just looking at the Eurasian Jays, Sguirrels and tits. And than he started his own hunting and that was a show. For about one hour he tryed to get this fast Jays but with no luck.


But for Staffan and me this was great. The Goshawk was sitting all around and sometimes to close for me.. I was shooting with Nikon D700 and 200-400mm ISO 1600 all day and shutter not more than 100!! But when we could shoot for more than 5 hours there should be something sharp. We had to push him away because there where no one to bring us out, the guide was in the hide:-) But I was so happy!

Thank you for a great day Staffan and litle Gos! - Eagleman

Great summer and first guests from US.

Hallo all of you!

Summer and autum have been a realy great this year. Sea Eagles have had a very good year, a great nesting season and my best day we had 48 dives.Happy with that, and there have been lots of old and new gusets comming. It's always nice to have old friends back but also to meet new people is great. I love you all:-) Even lots of nice girls. Dont tell my wife!!

I am already into the winter season and it looks realy good. Goshawk is back and she is a realy nice lady. Golden Eagles are back at the hide and Sea Eagles we still do by boat and they are just preforming well as always. Good friends out there.

November is so different, light is good and there is lots of species you never see in summer. Have seen leking Black Grouse now in Nov close to the sea, Great Skua have been around and that is not normal in summer, then I have my good friends the Artic Skua.

But this Nov. from 1.-9. I had my first guests from Amerika, Eric and Kevin. We had some very good days and they did well. This is why they have asked for more trips with me. US is maybe a big marked. So read what Eric and Kevin have done at this blogg. Also Eric have some nice pictures here.

So all the best for the winter and just get in touch if you need some new pictures and some fun in Flatanger. Ole M

I departed my house at 5:30 p.m. heading to Boston’s Logan airport for overnight flight to Iceland, with a connecting flight to Oslo, in southern Norway. I was meeting my friend Eric Grossman in Oslo and together we’d fly to Trondheim, where we would spend the night. This long first leg of our journey was my least favorite part of our trip. Ole, the perfect host, drove the 3 hours from his home in the village of Lauvsnes to meet us at the Trondheim airport. The 3 of us made the return journey north to his home. Eric and I were staying in the 4 bedroom guest house on his property. The house was perfect, set right on the water and had incredible views across to the marina where Ole kept his boat, and down the bay where we would sail the next morning. Eric and I had the immaculately clean house to ourselves and entertained ourselves by looking at the extensive collection of nature books in the reading room.

We were intrigued by the numerous framed prints on the walls of the white-tailed sea eagles, and wondered if we’d be lucky enough to see one in the following days. We soon found the next morning that we would not be disappointed. There are 20 nesting pairs of white-tailed eagles in the Flatanger area, and spending over 170 days a year on the water Ole knew where most, or all of them, were nesting. Anthropomorphizing a bit, Ole knew many on a first name basis. Eric and I found them to be challenging photographic subjects, but by the end of the first morning we both had incredible images of these magnificent birds. We both felt we had images that rivaled the framed prints hanging in Ole’s guest house. We had numerous close encounters with the eagles over the coming days.

But that was not all there was to experience in the woods and waters around Lauvses. Would we be interested in trying to see golden eagles and a northern goshawk Ole asked us. Our answer was a resounding yes. So we headed out the next morning before first light using headlamps to find our way in the woods as we hiked to several permanent blinds Ole had built in the woods. The blinds were comfortable and I quickly fell asleep as we waited for first light. My snoring must have been annoying to Eric, but fortunately didn’t seem to bother either the golden eagles or the northern goshawk. Not only were we fortunate enough to see both, but we spent several days photographing them from the warm and dry confines of Ole’s blinds.


The week with Ole went by far too quickly. Eric and I journeyed home with many fine images of white-tailed and golden eagles, northern goshawk, and many of the small European song birds found in the woods around his blind. Seeing and photographing both black grouse and a pygmy owl was an added bonus to our trip. We left making a new friend and were already planning a return visit.

Kevin

Kevin McCarthy

Ole, thanks for a great week of shooting. The guest house is fabulous and one really feels at home there and the ability to cook and relax makes for a most pleasant experience. On the subject of the wildlife, there is only word to summarize - "Extraordinary". The blinds you have built and the knowledge of the area and animal life takes all the variables out of shooting but and puts it all on the camera operator to get the shoot as the animals seem to magically appear.

What can I say about seeing upwards of 10 pair of magnificent white tailed (sea) eagles. And then to have the opportunity to photograph them competing amongst other eagles for fish, watching them dive in for the fish and then almost on command, catch the fish and fly away - simply amazing. Then, to top it off, to see golden eagles and the goshawk on the same trip was the icing on the cake. And then if that wasn't enough, to see pygmy owl, moose, black grouse and the other wide variety of bird species, made for an unbelievable week of shooting. Can't wait to come back in the summer and when there is snow in the winter, looking forward to enjoying more of that great Norwegian hospitality. You are a great guide, a great host and now a new friend in Norway, once again, thanks for a great experience.

Eric Grossman