Breath-taking Auroras

After several weeks with mostly cloudy and rainy weather here in the north, the sky cleared up tonight and revealed one of the most spectacular and colourful displays of northern lights that I have seen in a long while.

Now that solar maximum is approaching, it is likely that the coming months will be filled with truly spectacular auroras that may extend far south of the Arctic circle. Already last season, auroras could be seen as far south as France and Italy in southern Europe and in the southern states of the US.

One of the many photos I took during the night shows a lonely tree clad in orange autumn colours and was selected by NASA today as the best Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD)

All the photos below are taken during the night 19-20 September on one of the islands off the north Norwegian coast close to Tromsø - for more aurora photos - check out the web-site Northern Lights Photography

I wish you all clear skies and hope to see you under the auroras some day!

 

 

Bird Picture of the Week / Ukens Fuglebilde

Autumn is here and this is always an exciting time for bird-watchers.

This week`s bird-picture was taken earlier today when I was sneaking around through the autumn-coloured leaves of some mountain birches and discovered a bird that is only visiting Northern Norway during this time of the year.

 

Why these small (9-11 cm) warblers decide that it is worth the effort to come all the way here from their original distribution range in the far East (most breeding birds are found east of the Ural Mountains in Russia) I don`t know, but it`s a fascinating, a very long and somewhat different type of autumn-migration than "normally" seen.

 

So far this year, this is only the 4th Yellow-browed Warbler found in Norway (and the first was found by a good friend of mine on 31 August while ringing birds on the same island, Kvaløya outside Tromsø)

 

 

Yellow-browed Warbler (Phylloscopus inornatus) / Gulbrynsangere / Taigasångare