Solitude

One of the things I, truly, miss in some regions of Gêres are forests. With some exceptions, like Mata da Albergaria, you can walk long distances without observing a single mature tree. While trees do not thrive in higher altitudes, the truth is that Gerês was once far more forested that it is nowadays. The exploration of woodlands for building, coal and fire without replanting (sustaining) forests, and, particularly, the devastating fires in the last decades left these mountains deprived of true forests patches. Sometimes, deep in the valleys, especially along streams, you can still see several species of autochthones trees, offering a glimpse of the forests that may have once stood here.
In this trail, I found a young cork tree, isolated in a mountain side. Its organic shape stands out from the rocky landscape. It was alone, truly alone, in the sense that I haven’t seen anything but rocks, bushes and grass for kilometres.

Cork oak / Sobreiro - Quercus suber

Serra do Gerês, Portugal
2017, March

A dangerous procession in my path

With the trail passing by woodland, I saw an interesting behavioural manifestation of a group of small but quite deadly creatures. Adult pine processionary caterpillars leave their nests up in the pine trees and crawl in large groups, forming a single line. They actually travel for lengthy distances, until finding soft ground to burying themselves, forming cocoons and, later, emerging as moths.

It is also in this later adult stage that they can become deadly as their only defence against predators is their hairy spikes. These, upon contact, can cause severe rashes and even allergic reactions. Moreover, when under stress, these caterpillars eject their hairs which cling to the predator’s skin, eyes and respiratory airways. Dogs, with their curiosity, easily fall severely ill and may perish from just sniffing these caterpillars. Fortunately, this deadly procession only lasts a couple days a year, commonly occurring in the first warm days of spring.

These caterpillars are a devastating plague for pine woodlands. However, they have become a plague because of former agricultural policies which replaced autochthones forests with monocultures of their preferred habitat: the pine tree. Moreover, the natural predators of these caterpillars, crickets, bats and several birds’ species, fail on having natural environments to successfully breed in sufficient numbers to control the population. One major issue of forest farming is that trees are taken down without aging enough to provide natural shelters, i.e. small cavities, for birds to nest. One possible contribution would be to provide, in the affected regions, artificial nests for predators such as the great tit.

Pine processionary / Lagarta processionária do pinheiro - Thaumetopoea pityocampa Schiff. 

Serra do Gerês, Portugal
2017, March

Awakening Giant

Alto da Surreira do Meio Dia, a southeast mountain of Gerês, becomes illuminated by the sunrise. Facing it, the very small village of Fontainho still hangs in the darkness. What an amazing sight must be to have this rocky giant as your daily background when you open the windows.
[PT]Alto da Surreira do Meio Dia, na zona sudoeste do Gerês, iluminada pelo nascer do Sol. À sua frente, a aldeia de Fontainho permanece ainda na escuridão. Que bela imagem deve ser acordar diariamente perante o cenário deste gigante rochoso.

Serra do Gerês, Cabril, Portugal
2017, Março

Winter overrides spring

After a couple of days of very shinny and quite warm days, winter has made a sudden comeback and has overridden flower blossoms with a mantle of white fresh snow. Had no time to photograph it but I still had this one from last February’s snowstorm.

Serra do Gerês, Portugal
2017, Fevereiro

Salamander’s Pool

[EN] And then I realized I was not truly alone. This fire-salamander passed by, swimming upstream just to find a steady spot. Then it stood there, gently floating and holding itself by a grass leaf, while warming up with the sunlight. I was truly witnessing the undisturbed Nature’s most peaceful beauty. I found no given name for this specific part of the stream. Thus, and at least for my records, I hereby claim it as The Pool of The Salamander.

[PT] Foi neste momento que me apercebi que não estava sozinho. Uma salamandra-de-pintas-amarelas passou por mim, nadando corrente acima até encontrar um local calmo. E ali ficou, a gentilmente a flutuar, segurando-se por uma erva submergida, enquanto se aquecia ao Sol. Eu estava, realmente, a testemunhar o lado mais pacífico da beleza da imperturbada Natureza. Não encontrei um nome para esta poça em particular. Desta forma e pelo menos para os meus registos, baptizo este local da “Poça da Salamandra”.

Fire salamander / salamandra-de-fogo ou salamandra-de-pintas-amarelas – Salamandra-salamandra

Serra do Gerês, Portugal
2017, March

Ode to the skies

The day as awakened with a perfect and very deep blue sky. No clouds in sight, temperatures rising above 25ºC, and a slight breeze, nothing else. While this weather would be perfect for walking a trail, it dulls landscape photography by filling the upper composition with a rather monotonic and texture-less blue. Well, I said to myself, just dedicate your compositions to the mountains. Fill in those two thirds with rocky landscapes and patches of grass. That’s what matters.
And then this happens… the sky fills in with all its glory, steals all the protagonism from the mountains and, essentially, draws poetry in motion. I just stood there, witnessing it, and holding the camera and pointing it way to high, above the horizon…
[PT] O dia acordou com um céu de um profundo azul. Sem qualquer nuvem à vista, temperaturas acima dos 25ºC, uma pequena briza, e nada mais. Embora estas condições sejam óptimas para percorrer um trilho, acabam por empobrecer a fotografia de paisagem por encherem a parte superior da composição com um azul monotónico. Dediquei-me a encher as minhas composições com montanhas, enchendo os primeiros dois terços de rochas e vegetação. Era o que interessava.
E depois isto acontece. O céu enche-se de glória, rouba todo o protagonismo às montanhas e, essencialmente, desenha poesia em movimento. E eu fiquei ali, a testemunhar algo de extraordinário e a segurar a câmara, apontando-a bem acima do horizonte….

Serra do Gerês, Portugal
2017, March

Horizons – Laje dos Bois Panorama

The greatest gift I could receive in my birthday is… myself! And then make use of this day to walk a beautiful trail in the mountains and get my own ego crushed by the magnitude of these landscapes.
Laje dos Bois is a very small plateau, in the Gerês Eastern Mountains. It holds a patch of grassland, encircled by human laid rocks. This ancient grazing area is used to keep and feed cattle at high-altitude and very rocky landscapes. This is a 360º panorama of the horizon observable from its center.

Serra do Gerês, Portugal
2017, March

By the way, my “spring has arrived series” was suddenly interrupted by a 30ºC summer day in March. I’ll return to it…

Spring has arrived series - II

How many ways you can observe the same phenomena from the same subject. This photographic series, entitled “Spring has arrived”, is exactly that: how many perspectives am I able to take from one single subject: an absolutely astonishing Armenian Plum fruit tree with its early spring’s blossoms. From this rather simple photographic exercise, I can extrapolate to society: exploring and looking at things from different perspectives is an effective form to avoid adopting dogmas or limiting our knowledge to certain ways of thinking. In a side note, I must say that the first photograph is, clearly, one of mine most chaotic compositions. And it, actually, works…

Armenian plum, damasqueiro – Prunos armeniaca

Vieira do Minho, Portugal
2017, Março

Spring has arrived series - I

One of the local fruit trees has informed me that spring has arrived…

 

Armenian plum, damasqueiro – Prunos armeniaca

Vieira do Minho, Portugal
2017, Março