A new house and a new camera

We have now purchased a new house, 2kms outside of Nattavaara.  We will be moving there in the autumn and I will write more later in the year.

I have also purchased a second-hand camera; Panasonic Lumix FZ-38 which is a hybrid super zoom camera.

So far I am pleased with the results….

Some of the pictures in my previous post are also taken with this camera.

The only problem is that there is no remote shutter release for this particular model, so I have made one myself using a shelf bracket, a spanner for draining radiators and an air release cable that I have had laying in a box for many years.

When you compress the air bulb connected to a 5m cable

the air forces a metal rod out of the other end.  In the first picture the bulb is not compressed

In this second picture the bulb is compressed and the rod pushes down on the shutter release button to take a picture

The remote works very well!

A day at the cabin

Last Saturday i spent the day at my cabin.  As you can see there is still ice on the lake.

and there is still a lot of snow on the ground

Very similar conditions to when I spent my first spring there in 2008.

I went for a long walk while at the cabin and found a trail of feathers

which led to the remains of a male Capercaillie

I imagine he had been displaying and was unaware of a Fox creeping up on him.  You can see Fox droppings in this picture

I also found some fresh Mink droppings

Black Grouse were also displaying at the cabin

and there was a hare

The most common birds in the forest just now are Siskin

and Brambling

Reindeer are also calving at the moment

Of course while out walking I made fire, cooked coffee and grilled sausage!

Things are starting to happen

The weather is getting warmer during the day (up to 13 degrees) and so the snow is melting faster.  Summer migrant birds are arriving such as;

Whooper Swan

Brambling

Pied Flycatcher

and Capercaillie display

Though I found a nice location to photograph beaver last week

the rivers and streams are now in flood and so the beaver are more difficult to find.

Felling and splitting birch

During the last few weeks when the weather has permitted, I have been out felling Birch trees.  This is much work during the winter because before you can fell each tree, you have to dig down through at least one metre of snow to reach the bottom of each tree.

Once I had felled several trees, i cut them into desired lengths and loaded on to the snowmobile sledge and transported them home.

Last weekend (with my father-in-laws help) we cut the trees into logs

and I used Ingvar’s electric log splitter to slit the logs to help them dry.  These logs we will use at our cabins.