Early morning at Torronsuo

Last weekend Finnish nature photographers' association held an open summer meeting at Eerikkilä sport & outdoor resort in Tammela. This resort is close to two national parks, Torronsuo and Liesjärvi, so obviously one of the scheduled activities was photographic excursions to these places. However, since the best lights tend to be in morning and this time of year in these latitudes the sunrise is pretty early, not everybody attending did join these excursions, but I was both Saturday and Sunday morning among the twenty or so people who gathered to the parking lot in the front of the reception at 3:45 am. Here I will cover the more memorable one on Saturday.

After a short drive that already showed promising views on the fields we arrived in Torronsuo and split in few smaller groups and I was among the people who headed first to the tall birding tower.

1. To one direction you could see a moon crescent


2. The sky in treeline towards the direction where the sun would rise showed promising red glow although the actual sunrise was still some 20 minutes after I took this picture


3. And thick mist covered the bog everywhere (also you could hear voices of cranes, but sadly we did not see them this time)


4. Eventually the sun rose above the horizon


5. Pity that those cell phone masts spoil the landscape a bit


6. After a while it was time to go down and enjoy the scenery from the ground level


7. Morning sun colours were still nice


8. Interesting spider webs


9. Sundews and grass


10. Closer look on a sundew


Eventually, the magical morning light disappeared and it was time to return to the resort for a breakfast and other program of the day. And tease a bit those who chose to sleep rather than go photographing.

pegelli wrote: Great series, it was really worth it to get up early. I like 7 best and could you get closer to the webs in 8? I think a close-up of such a dewed web against the light can result in great abstracts.

Here is alternative take on those webs with slightly longer focal length - going closer to these was not quite an option this time since the terrain in front was wet...