Nature and Wildlife Photography blog | Wildlife photography | Landscape photography

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

New website!


I have just opened my new website!!! Well, the website was old but it needed a facelift. I'm pretty proud but I would love to get your comments on it! The first page is a blog to where I will be posting new photo additions. You can also follow that blog.

www.mariannrea.com :)

You might have also noticed the change in this blog's banner. I think this one is much better than the first one.


Saturday, March 28, 2009

Coffee break

My husband just made me a nice cup of coffee. I don't drink coffee much but I enjoy it every time I do. Today's coffee somehow brought back nice and soft memories from my childhood. I remember being introduced to coffee when I was around 10, of course with half cup of milk and calf coffee at first. At one point a cup of coffee became a tradition every day in the summer to me and my grandparents. I have fond memories of the days when every day at 6 o'clock in the evening we would get together and enjoy a nice cup of coffee and some cookies or sweet bread rolls. I especially remember the days when the weather was excellent and we would sit outside our summer home and enjoy life. The cool breeze that brushed my hair, birds singing in every bush, beautiful nature and our own 100-year old house made it perfect. Even when the weather was fine and we decided to sit inside there was and excellent atmosphere. Imagine a big and old wooden house on a warm summer evening, three people sitting in the big kitchen, no lights are turned on, just the light from the three windows - this is what it was like. I wish I could somehow make you see what it was like but it felt like I was totally free and enjoyed my life to the fullest. I guess I am easy to please but I believe that the things that make you happy are usually the smallest of things.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

The Great Canvas Print Sale




Redbubble is having a canvas print sale!
The prices are reduced 20%!
Hurry, the sale ends Sunday night!
Visit my store at littlefox.redbubble.com or click on the pictures.




Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Only sunshine

Yes, we have seen nothing but the sun for already 4 days in a row now! :) I don't remember the last time this happened... Spring is finally here! There is still a bit snow and it's not so warm yet, about zero, but today I noticed that there are buds on the chestnut tree next to our home.

Last Sunday me and my hubby went for a drive on the eastern side of Tallinn and ended some 60 km from it. There are beautiful little fishing villages with pine trees and so many new people have built houses and moved in since our last visit. I like that the new trend seems to be to build a farm house type building. We have always had log houses with reed roofs in Estonia but there was a period where farm houses were out. Now people are building them again.


I knew that on a sunny day like this there would be lots of buzzards flying about looking for food. I was right. I think we saw totally 7 buzzards. Sadly though they were too clever for me as I tried to crawl and hide and take pictures. Of course it was quite impossible to walk quietly because all the fields were covered with snow that had a thick layer of ice on top and every time you stepped there was a loud noise... :S


So when the buzzards flew away I took some nature shots instead :P


When we came back I saw 4 foxes on different fields, too far away to start stalking. Also 5 roe deer. 4 of them were just 2 meters from a big road! That's bad that they don't fear the traffic at all. But I have trained my hubby well :) :P He immediately stopped the car when I pointed out the deer next to the road. He didn't know that I had already packed all of my gear away in my camera bag. I wasn't sad though because I got to see the roe deer from very close again and after we stopped the car there were others behind us, all admiring the animals and thankfully this frightened them by sending them off to the forest. I think we just might have saved 4 animal's lives!!!

Monday, March 23, 2009

My first sale on RedBubble!

It's only been a week since I joined the online art community called RedBubble and I have just been notified that I have made my first sale! Yeeiii! :)
This delicious Party food photo was purchased as a greeting card.

Thank you so much!

Link to this blog!











If you appreciate what I do and write here then please include my banner in your own blog or website. Here is the code for it:

<a href="http://littlefoxphotos.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img
src="http://www.mariannrea.com/my_blog_banner.jpg" border="0"></a>

P.S. Let me know here by commenting if you do ;) I will add you to my Friends list.

Thank you!

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Spring is finally here!

It was already yesterday when the spring finally began but right after that it started snowing again... Today, thankfully, was and excellent day - warm and not a cloud in the sky, well there were some clouds later but they also disappeared again :D
We drove to the woods and the sea today, me and my family. It was a long drive, some 80-90 km, but it was totally worth it! I have been in that place before in the summer but had forgotten where exactly it was. This place was so beautiful in the summer that I wanted to go back there and accidentally we ended up in that same spot today! :D Here's a preview of what it looks like in the summer.
It's in the North-West of Estonia and has miles and miles of woodland. There's a sea just nearby and we had a little stroll by the beach, a bit windy though.

We had my mom's partner's dog Scrappy with us and she was soooooo happy to see the forest that at first she didn't know what to do LOL. They used to live near the forest but now they moved to the city for the winter and she hasn't seen a forest for months. Scraps was running like crazy and it felt like we had not one but 3 dogs as she was all over the place :D We threw her sticks and snowballs and she chased after them in 100km per hour :P It's great to see a dog so happy!

Very pleased girl!

Here are some other pics that I took.
Paldiski bank

Friday, March 20, 2009

My main influences in life

I want to talk about how one place can influence your life in a BIG way. And I mean a place not people because it's only natural that both my parents have influenced me in a big way especially because they both are artists and the eye for art is heritable.
The place for me is Saaremaa (the biggest island of Estonia) and more specifically Sülla talu, that's the name of our summer home. The house was built in 1898 and my grandparents bought it in 1977. It was in poor condition then because it had been empty for some years. They started fixing the place and soon it looked like an old farmhouse should look. We also built a sauna and used old logs to match the main house. My grandma planted flowers and looked after the vegetable field and she still does even though she is 81 now. But of course I try to help her in every way I can even though she is very stubborn from time to time :)

I have spent my every summer as a child there, left right after the school ended and came back right before it started again. I seriously believe that I would be a totally different person if I didn't have that kind of place to go to every year. As my grandfather always says: it's a paradise! In Saaremaa I learned about wildlife and nature and fell in love with it. There are forests all around us, no houses nearby, thousands of birds and lots of animals, for example roe deer, foxes, elk, badgers, hare, wild boar, raccoon dogs etc. At the other end of Saaremaa there are also wolves, wolverines, red deer and seals. It is a place to escape to, a place where you can be one with the nature and forget about all your troubles.

Almost all of my animal stories that I'm going to post here will come from that special place. Some of them have already happened, some are yet to come. Some are really close to our home, some little bit farther. My favourite place to go is a forest opening about 100m from our home where I have spotted and photographed roe deer, foxes, elk, hare, buzzards, woodpeckers and so on. Sadly though there has been a sale last year and one family will start to build a summer home at the edge of the forest. That is really making me sad because I can't visit that place in peace anymore. But there are other places nearby. Last year I walked almost every evening or morning to the sea, it's about 900 meters from our house. There are thick forests, lovely little roads and fields on the way to the sea. A perfect day for me in the summer is when I wake up before the sun and when there are no clouds but some mist. I get my gear and head to the sea. The smells and the sounds are undescribable.

I feel very lucky to have that kind of place to live and want to share it with all of you.

RedBubble

You can purchase my photos from RedBubble and have them printed as cards, framed prints, laminated prints etc. You can also buy t-shirts and calendars.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Welcome

Hi everyone and welcome to my blog! :)

I will post my new photos here whenever I can and tell you great stories about meeting wild animals.
This roe deer was taken in Saaremaa, the biggest island on Estonia. He didn't see me although I was crouching just 5 meters from him!
Lovely animal.
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