Panorama Photo

As I wrote on #19976, the weather changed for the better later in the day, and that was important. Not that it meant any Gipfelsturms...it was important, since later in the day I had booked an extraordinary experience. I was to go to the island of Nólsoy, and visit the worlds largest European Storm Petrel-colony (50-60000 pairs).

These small and elusive birds are highly pelagic, and can only be seen on rare occasitions from land in western Europe, during storms in the fall. And even on the Faroes, they are very difficult to see during daytime. But during the night, they switch place with their mate in the nesthole, and by spending 2-3 hours near the colony, one can witness this switch extremely close by, and possibly see and hear thousands - the birds doesn't care as long as you keep quiet. Now, if the weather was bad with strong wind, rain and fog, it would not be so funny, and you would not see that many birds very well. But I was lucky; it was completely quiet and clear, so I had the bright summer night sky to see the birds on. And I got a bonus. A longtime naturalist on the island, Jens-Kjeld Jensen, offers guided trips to the colony, with catching, ringing, and releasing of Storm Petrels included. During the years, he has ringed a fantastic number, +30000, of Storm petrels, not likely any of them to be recaptured, but sensationally, he has had 5 recoveries of dead birds i South African waters during wintertime, and in this way contributed to ducument the wintering grounds for these birds. We had a fantastic evening/night in the colony with a small swiss group as well, but sadly I could not use my flash to document flying birds, since I had dropped my camera on the ground a few days before, thereby ruining my flash:-( However, with the combined forces of flashlightes, and our friend iso-12800, I made some decent shots neverless...any interested can have a look here:

http://www.jenskjeld.info/UK_side/indexuk.htm

http://retrobirder.blogspot.dk/2015/10/frerne-iii-nolsoy.html

So in short, I came to Nólsoy at appr. 1820, met with Jens-Kjeld to settle the rendevouz time-and-place, and then had time for a 3 hour hike, before the start of "The Storm Petrel Experience". Since it was getting quite clear, it was natural to try get a pano of the view, and I was quite lucky, although I didn't have time for an all-in climb. The still thick cloud-layer and quiet weather gave a sombre mood which I liked, and try to preserve in the pano. During the night it was completely clear, and lasted to the next morning, which gave me some good views in a short time-span.

Pano made from 17 LF pics (RAW), 50 mm, iso-200, f/5,6, 1/200 sec, developed in DPP (cloudy, neutral, ALO off, moderate sharpness), stitched in PTGui pro, minor contrast adjustment, down-scaling and sharpening in Irfanview.