A trip to Slottskogen on Christmas Eve

When I looked out on Christmas Eves morning everything was white. The snow had started to fall during the evening the day before but I understood by the reports that warmer air was coming from the south and we could get rain during Christmas Eve.

I have worked many times before on Christmas Eve, but this year it was Marias turn. I wanted to see what light the morning would bring before I decided to do a short trip to Slottskogen. Now I didn´t have to ponder about this as I understood that I had to drive Maria to work, because otherwise she would have come late to work. So I prepared my camera while she was wrapping up the last Christmas presents. The temperature was above zero and there were no wind. Still it was a hassle to drive as many of the streets we had to drive on, both to Marias work and to Slottskogen, still had lots of snow on them. Now I am familiar with this type of driving, but sadly most aren´t in this corner of Sweden as the winters often doesn´t mean huge quantities of snow.

I arrived at Slottskogen around 9:30. The sun was at that time making a short appearance so I really counted myself lucky. I couldn’t spend too much time here because it was Christmas Eve and I had other obligations. I wanted to check if I could find the Mallard Duck and Northern Pintail hybrid that had been seen here during the week. I headed to the big pond, but I couldn´t see the bird there. The camera was out and I took some photos of the Mallard Ducks that searched to food in the snow.

I took this portrait of a female Mallard Duck with lots of snow on the beak. I had to wait for the right opportunity to get the background free of other Ducks as there were 100 Ducks in total. I like this picture especially the eye in which you can see the landscape and the sun raising on the horizon.

I also went up to the smaller pond to check the feeding station there, there is also a feeding station at the big pond. It is often a more intense activity at this feeding station and it weren’t no exception this day.

The only really interesting photo from that short session was this one.

I can´t remember to have seen this behavior from a Hooded Crow before. It stuck its head into the snow and then ploughed forward before coming up shaking the head to free from the snow. It did this a couple of times before flying away. I think it’s a funny picture that show another side of the Crow. Most people despise Crows but I find them interesting just like Magpies and Jackdaws.

Photo Gallery: A trip to Slottskogen on Christmas Eve