A weekend with Maria visiting her father in Nossebro, West Gothland

We decided to visit Marias father in Nossebro last weekend. Maria wanted to check the status of his garden and I wanted to check up on a lead I had gotten for a new birding site in West Gothland.

Bertil, Marias father, is singing in a choir and during Friday evening they held a concert in Gothenburg, our hometown in West Gothland. That meant Bertil could leave the car at home as we planned driving to Nossebro after work on Friday.

The drive to Nossebro was eventful as we had Hokus, Marias cat, with us. She kept on meowing during most of the trip, but I still think she “behaves” in a much nicer way than many cats do when travelling in a car. Bertil made us take a small detour around the Lake Anten. This was a nice and scenic route that I haven´t travelled before and I will try to go there a summer evening doing some landscape photography. I also got the first Eurasian Elk sighting for the year during this detour. It where probably a calf from last year that just had been exiled by the mother.

Both Saturday and Sunday were lazy mornings for me. I usually wake up early, which is a real benefit as I like the morning light, but I didn´t have the drive this weekend to get up and out.

Maria checked the status of the garden during Saturday. A couple of trees had died during the cold winter/spring and they will have to be replaced. Still I think the garden was in a nice condition if you compared to other places we visited during Saturday evening. We found places in the forest where most of the European blueberry had died, possibly of draught. I can´t remember to have seen this type of destruction before.

I took this photo in the garden during Saturday evening before we headed out for a trip to Sjöryd, a bird site along Lake Vänern. I really like the saturated color on the Tulip in this photo together with the smooth, and dark, background that make the flower pop out. I also keep a good amount of grass between myself and the Tulip to get a diffuse green glow in lower part of the picture. I think it worked out nicely.

Sjöryd didn´t bring anything out of the ordinary, but I like this photo of a Common Crane that is flying into the sunset.

I didn´t expect to see any Cranes there, but I really don´t know what to expect of this year. Everything is behind by a month or more. The picture is nice, but I think it lacks the saturated colors that you have in the Tulip picture.

Sunday meant a trip to the area of Skövde to check out a new possible birding site for me. What interested me there were the possibility to photo the Horned Grebe. I also had in mind to check out Lake Hornborga, but that wasn´t to be as we didn´t find the first place as easy as I had hoped for.

Still we did find the place and it surely delivered. I saw at least four different Horned Grebes there and I got the possibility to photo them both while they searched for food, but also when the chased each other. The light was okay for some periods, but I struggled to get the crisp photos that I want due to heavy clouds.

This is the photo that I am most satisfied with. The Horned Grebe is coming towards me while picking up speed to pass me under the pier that I am lying flat on. You can see how the water is sucked in under the Grebe due to acceleration.

I like the short depth of field that just keep the head sharp and the rest of the Grebe blurry. The colors are nice with the green reflections from the foliage around the small lake.

This is truly a spectacular and photogenic bird and I think I must go back in a couple of weeks to see if they have any young ones then.

All in all we had a nice and relaxed weekend on the plains of West Gothland. I hope you enjoy my photos from this weekend.

Photo Gallery: A weekend with Maria visiting her father in Nossebro, West Gothland