A night in the wilderness of Finland

Reading Time: 7 minutes - November 29, 2019 - by Alessandro Sgro

You have reached your destination

When I arrived at my destination, I was taken to my own hide, where I was to spend the next 16 hours on the Russian border and hopefully see wild bears. As the temperatures cooled down considerably at night, it is particularly important to have warm clothing, a warm sleeping bag to sit in during the time in the hide, enough coffee and food (sleep is in short supply). But of course especially important: the photo equipment.
The Canon 400 DO f4 II provided by Canon, which was on my Canon 5D IV, protruded through the openings of the photo hide. I had to be particularly confident in the weather protection of my Canon equipment, as the Lens was exposed to the pouring rain and coped brilliantly without me having to worry. You should always have enough spare batteries and memory cards in your luggage for such activities. I use SanDisk Extreme Pro, as they process data quickly and don't have any problems with large amounts of data, even with continuous shooting.

Here I was sitting and didn't have to wait long for my dream to come true.
The first brown bear came out of the forest into the swampy landscape around me and I couldn't believe my eyes. My favorite animal, only about 15-20 meters away from me and I had the privilege of capturing it in pictures. The weather made the conditions more difficult, as the sky was covered in thick cloud and the lighting conditions were not particularly good. Here it was particularly important to be able to achieve good high ISO performance with the 5D IV.

A dream comes true

But this was by no means the only encounter I had that evening. On the horizon - about 50 meters away - something grey approached me. Before I knew it, a she-wolf was standing about 20 meters from my hide. Wolves are incredibly shy animals and it is a privilege to see them in the wild. There are about 185-200 wolves in the wild in Finland. The pack was playing at the edge of the forest and I was able to capture this spectacle on video.
Again and again I saw bears crossing the swamp towards the forest. Then probably the most breathtaking moment of the evening. In the evening? That's right! In Scandinavia it is light for a particularly long time and darkness only falls briefly in summer. So the midnight sun is a photographer's best companion in Scandinavia. So what gave me the light that was still sufficient for photography? I looked through the viewfinder of my Canon and couldn't believe my eyes. A brown bear at the edge of the forest and behind him the she-wolf peering out from his shadow. I could hardly believe my luck and kept pressing the shutter of the camera. Afterwards I enjoyed the moment, because that's ultimately what it's all about, fully savoring the intimate moment with these unique and beautiful creatures.

Everything has an end

After this great experience and the onset of darkness, it was time for me to close my eyes and prepare for the morning. There were mattresses in the hide that I was allowed to use. After two hours of sleep, I drank my coffee and got ready for hopefully more wildlife action.
Nothing happened for a few hours. Crows were my only company and I was already starting to count them. But then something flew up a dead tree that looked nothing like a crow. It was a young eagle. It was observing the area and sitting calmly on the tree. Of course, every photographer hopes to capture an animal of this kind in the air, but I was very grateful for this moment. After about 20 minutes I was alone again.

Around 06:45 the last sighting. While packing my backpack, I continued to look intently into the distance. Suddenly I realized something darting into the picture from the right. It wasn't a bear, it wasn't a wolf. The something in question was the wolverine. It looks like a cross between a marten and a small bear, which is why it is also called a bear marten. There are about 150-170 individuals in Finland. After the wolverine had spotted something, it immediately fled into the forest with its find.

At 07:30 my adventure unfortunately came to an end. I was picked up and taken back to my Landy, which was safely parked at the Wildlife Camp. Afterwards, I caught up on a good night's sleep in the car and dreamt about my experiences.
Many thanks to Canon for their support with this project. Without you it would not have been possible to this extent. Many thanks to Foto Koch for presenting my story. It's a great feeling to be able to share these experiences with other people