The gift of the Bear

A day in May

The other night He has come. It had been already five or six afternoons that I was there waiting, lurking under a juniper in the anonymous valley at the border of the beech forest. I was feeling the fatigue from the many hours of waiting, but I didn’t get bored. The first evening a wolf, perhaps lost in its thoughts, had passed less than ten meters from my position; I had closely followed the exciting dalliances of cuckoos, and every afternoon I had fun searching with my binoculars for deer, wild boars, hares, and foxes in the surrounding meadows. That day, cool from the downpours of the previous days, was now drawing to a close and a sunset still different from the previous ones casted spots of lights on the mountain tops in the distance. After the sun had dropped behind the line of the hills and the nightjar began to sing, I realized that even that day He would not have come, and so I disassembled the camera equipment, stalled for hours on the tripod. Too bad: I really needed Him.

So, I stood up and loaded the backpack on my shoulders, turning back only to give a last glance at the valley. And then, as tradition dictates, I have seen Him. He was moving slowly through the old junipers, with the muzzle down and the fur golden and shiny, beautiful and perfect like all the good things of this world.

With sweaty hands and drumming heart, I crouched down again, slowly unloading the backpack and trying to quickly replace the equipment with all necessary precautions to minimize noise. In twenty seconds, the camera and telephoto lens were ready and I, on tiptoe, approached Him. My legs were shaking, but He was busy sniffing among rocks and shrubs and the wind was blowing towards me. Seventy meters ... fifty ... forty ... I so wanted to spend that evening with Him.

More out of habit than actual need, I hid under a blackthorn. I then placed the tripod, framed the picture and pressed the shutter button. He heard it and stopped immediately, turning His great head toward me: I was too close. The ears pointed in my direction, the nose up to sniff the wind (I could hear the sound of it) and the two little brown eyes that seemed rather perplexed in the advancing darkness. I remained still and holding my breath, waiting for His inevitable escape; furious with myself for my unseemly hybris and impatience. But, instead of running away, He sat down, continuing to look in my direction. And, for once, in His presence I felt something that I could define like an ancient and healthy fear. I felt so small and useless, while He was so big in the viewfinder of my camera! Dark brown, almost chocolate-colored on the flanks and abdomen, with cappuccino-colored spots on the head and back, which at times tinged with cream for a twist of the twilight.

And even in that moment of magic, all I could think of was to take another, stupid picture. He turned to the side, trying in any way not to look at me. Then, I understood and so lowered my gaze and the telephoto lens to the ground. Something like a light electric wave passed between us and immediately vanished.

Soon after, He got up and started to search for food, moving slowly, but with that special way at the same time naïve and determined that distinguishes Him. I followed at a distance, sparing the camera shots not to bother Him further and also because the light was almost gone. He ignored, perhaps accepted me. And so, once again, it was just me and Him in these humble Apennines: all for me, my dear old Marsican Brown bear!

Finally I was able to live again the true Italian miracle; perhaps, one of the best things that are left in this world. Full of gratitude and respect, in my heart I felt I had to solemnly bless those sacred moments and wondered why I was not allowed to live them every day.

The Bear, probably unaware of such clumsy mysticism, slowly climbed up the slope in front of me, elegantly reversing the gigantic stones He found on his path, and, when either my eyes or my camera could no longer make out His outline, I waved Him goodbye, heading rapidly in the opposite direction. My legs were flying over the rocks, as my head was elsewhere. I still had some way to go in the dark and reach my car.

A day in June

Once again happily lost among the benevolent limestone peaks of the Apennines, I was following an ancient path that climbed among centuries-old beech trees. Out of the woods, the clearing appeared to me in all its radiant beauty, the deep-green grass was dotted here and there with huge boulders overturned, all blinding white in the summer afternoon. In some places the grass had been trampled by a large animal; the stems browsed on top. Then, a big black turd, fresh and full of vegetable fragments, has opened a world of possibilities. Once again I felt I was on His steps in His territory and I knew I was privileged. I had two more hours before sunset.

I sat between two large rocks and waited: my shape confused with the shadows, my smell hopefully brought away by the wind. Small clouds flowed fast in the sky; in the woods, a collared pigeon could not stop cooing and distracted me from my thoughts. A male roe deer, all proud in his beautiful summer coat, came timidly out to my right and now was nervously grazing not far from me.

Every now and then he suddenly raised his nose from the grass, pointing his ears to the treeline at the end of the valley, as in alarm. Hopeful, I followed with anxiety and mild adrenaline rush those sudden movements and stared at the woods along with the deer. In my heart, I was looking forward to the appearance of that unmistakable shape and the strong and healthy emotion that always accompanied it.

Waiting, thoughts, weariness, hope. Meanwhile, the light faded and a sylark was singing the end of that day, so small in the azure sky, and higher than any eagle. I was grateful that very lark had escaped the hunters last fall. It was all so beautiful, but it was late and I had to go home.

I got up and, not without regret, I did flee the roe deer, which already was barking away. While loading the backpack, I followed with the gaze how the trail entered the woods, dark as the mouth of a large animal. A slight shiver went along my back. It was certainly not the first time I went through the beech woods alone at night!

I left the clearing and entered the trees. As these thickened, my eyes could barely make out the outlines and the shadows seemed more a projection of my mind than real things. I was forced to keep my eyes fixed on the stones of the path, still visible, but I was reluctant to turn on the flashlight, indulging in that black and white world, devoid of any references.

Steps, rustling, the wind in the leaves and the squeak of dormice: the beech forest came alive. At every noise my heart was sinking; every curve of the path was a barrier to overcome. The air was fresh and, above my head, the black shapes of twisted beech trees were silhouetted against the first stars of the night. Rehearsing next to an old tree stump, which I had seen on the way up and that a bear in search of insects had completely destroyed with its paws, I thought back to the overturned stones in the clearing and I felt the power of that presence and, again, that electric wave. It was not fear, but a very strong and primitive feeling, which perhaps I could describe as a mix of sharp attention, increased sensorial capacity, intense communication with the environment and a profound sense of humility.

I felt so small and the world around me didn’t see anymore so obvious. It was strange, but I liked it. Step by step, it was clear to me thar it was something important, rare and which came from afar. And so I indulged in it: it was the gift of the Bear. 

It was its mere presence, in fact, to establish the limits of those places: vast and timeless as the story they were telling. I wondered what would happen to the beech forest, to those mountains, if there would have been no longer bears. Who else would have allowed us, people of the third millennium, to experience those emotions like Pleistocene hunters? What else could have re-established the link between us and the wilderness?

One hundred, fifty, or just one, it does not matter: if there is still the Bear.

It would be nice, I said to myself, to share those feelings with others, even with those hungry "developers" of these mountains, or with whom can make major decisions but does not. It would be nice, yes, but I fear few would understand, because I know that the gift of the Bear is sadly outdated.

An hour and a half later I finally got to my car, woods and wilderness locked out of the vehicle. Later, in my bed, I thought back of the Bear. Maybe He was out that night, roaming under the stars as He always did, I thought, and so I slept peacefully, knowing that it was not a dream.

Text and pictures© Bruno D’Amicis – www.brunodamicis.com. All rights reserved worldwide.

Pit stop with black grouses. Or, "how to detect a vanishing species".

"We stand now where two roads diverge. (...) The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road -- the one less traveled by -- offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth." Rachel Carson

Black grouses have been one of my photographic nemesis during the whole time I was working in Slovakia. They are not particularly difficult (once one knows a good spot and obey the rules of the game - set up your hide at night, get there when still dark, etc.), but bad luck always played a role on all the attempts I made in Tichà and so I never got a single, decent picture...

Therefore, while I was planning a trip to the Bavarian forest in Germany on mid-May, invited by the National Park to photograph the Park's wildest corners (and not the animal enclosures...), I decided to try my luck with this species one more time and stop somewhere in the Alps for just one morning attempt. My friends and great nature photographers Luciano Gaudenzio (www.naturalight.it) and Gabriele Bano kindly invited me to a grouse lek (area where the males display) in Friuli, the region where they live and work. The area sounded very promising, with stories of more than 40 (!) displaying males back in the 80's. This, and maybe all the kilometres driven the day before, made difficult to catching some sleep in the already short night. We would get up at 2.45 AM and walk to the hide in the darkness. A thin layer of fresh snow on the barren ground, stars in the sky: the best premises. Already before sunrise the first male came in front of the hide. After this one, other four reached the lek. Only the calls, a loud "chooissshhhh" and the repeated, fluid "rooo...proooo", revealed their presence in the fading darkness. Once outlined their figures, I tried some pictures with crazy shutter speeds of 2-3 seconds, just to see what they would look like. The sun came out, or, better, the day came out, as a sudden layer of clouds had obscured the clear sky. The resulting hours were nice, but the light was dim and quite boring for any good picture. Nevertheless, I won my nemesis and got some pictures of a black grouse! At 7Am the birds left and for me was time to pack all my stuff and quickly make my way to Germany. It had been a nice "pit stop", especially by enjoying the great company of Luciano and Gabriele Bano, the breathtaking mountain landscape and the colors of this unique bird: I was happy.

But, hey, wait a minute. Five males? Where were all the grouses gone? As said, people once witnessed dozens of birds here, so what was going on? We asked some locals that morning and figured out that the previous hunting season surely took a large toll on this population. Could that be the cause of such a rapid decline? Even in other European countries, where I had the chance to observe this species, people spoke of sudden decreases in numbers. In Tichà, for example, nowadays only few single males come to the alpine meadows in May. What is going on? Is overhunting the one to blame? Could it be that this once-common mountain bird is suffering from a vast, unknown menace? Climate change?? Will the Black grouse be a next vanishing species? What can be done to save it?

Way too often I am experiencing or hearing stories similar to this also about other species. It is a weird time to be a wildlife photographer and a though one to be a conservationist. There are few answers for many questions. But one thing is for sure, we cannot take the diversity of Nature for granted anymore. It is time to do something and act firmly, before spring would become silent even in the most remote corners of Europe!

Light in the darkness

"...I will call that "something" that happened ten years ago the "disappearance of fireflies"..." Pier Paolo Pasolini



More than 30 years ago, the Italian poet (and prophet) Pier Paolo Pasolini wrote about the disappearance of fireflies as a famous metaphor of the profound and rapid change underwent by Italy in its economic and social structure. This quick change from a peasant land into an industrial nation happened in the '50s and '60s and was called Italian economic miracle. The reality is that this phaenomenon involved mass exoduses of peasants from Southern Italy toward the industrial centres of the north, class differentiation, chaotic urbanization, air and water pollution and, above all, a sort of cultural genocide, which changed the face of this land and its people for ever.
Now, almost 50 years later, I feel as if we are facing a new "disappearance of fireflies" in this country, and, perhaps, in many others, as well. The same old threats maybe just with a new look. Everyday, as a photographer working on the territory, it hurts to witness among most of people a widespread illegality mixed with an absolute lack of interest toward environmental issues. This absence of any sort of "healthy" relationship between Us and Nature makes easier for speculators and exploiters to encroach up the last patches of wild land. The so called "clean" windfarms of today are like the chemical factories of yesterday. The golf courses, the sky grounds of the past.
Windfarms are, in fact, growing everywhere in the highlands of Italy, and especially on the precious ridges of the Apennines. The golf courses subsititute mountain meadows and old fields. Dump sites and quarries pollute the water and the soil for a long time. Behind their appearance of necessary development and quick economic reward, these are just new ways to sell out the land and destroy what most important has been left to Us: the chance to still live and enjoy the world of our past as our ancentors did.
I still want to drink water from a stream, walk on a mountain ridge with an eagle soaring above me, ride my bike across blooming fields, sit down and look at the fireflies sparkling as darkness comes. These are things I enjoyed since my childhood and cannot see disappear without doing anything. Each of Us must have a place of his own, his "homeland", and to protect it, I guess it is important to live it as much we can; get to know it; understand it and learn to love it. Come on, it's still summer outside!

No peace for Italian wildlife

"Fox in the snow, where do you go
To find something you can eat?
Cause the word out on the street is you are starving
Dont let yourself grow hungry now
Dont let yourself grow cold..."
(Belle & Sebastian)



The past weeks have seen me often out in the cold, well before dawn, to work on a few remarkable photographic opportunities. I wanted to write about eagles, vultures, rock partridges, foxes and all the nice animals that somehow shared their life with me. But there is a more urgent and unpleasant matter to report. A few days ago, an Italian senator, Mr. Franco Orsi belonging to the governing party PdL, came out with an ominous law proposal which plans to completely change the hunting rules and therefore affect the destiny of the wildlife in Italy.

Among the many wicked points of this law are the opening of hunting in the national parks and nature preserves and that of the hunting of "pests" such as wolves, bears, swans and many other rare and protected species. For more information (only in Italian, unfortunately), you can visit this webpage and sign the petition here. If you would like to get more information in English, please feel free to write me as I would be eager to spread the word about this horror.

Unfortunately this is not an isolated case. This is just one of the many horrible things I see happening everyday here in Italy (or elsewhere) against nature and against people. One of the many attempts to limit our freedom and the one of whom cannot speak. Today, I can still retreat in my hermitage of mountains and old beech forests, smelling the silence of the snow and waiting for a fox to appear in the morning. But for how long?

KAFFA, the birthplace of Coffee

"Coffee is the best thing to douse the sunrise with." (Drew Sirtors)

To see the slideshow in full-size, please click HERE or, if you want to see all the images at a glance, please click HERE

Kaffa, the birthplace of Coffee. Yes, the world-famous, delicious, black drink really comes from this mountainous region in the Southwest of Ethiopia. Protected by very steep slopes, wide chocolate-coloured rivers and fabulous rainforests, the Wild Coffee plants thrived here for centuries, providing the precious beans -possibly the best in the world- to the people living in the area. A thick array of hundreds of moss-covered trunks, silvery-green leaves and bright red beans, the coffee forest is truly a unique place to be in. Unfortunately, current population growth compounded by increasing poverty levels has led to rapid deforestation. People living in these areas are forced by their economic situation to convert the rainforests to farmland and/or sell them to foreign investors. With a loss of 15-20% each year, the rainforest, which previously covered more than 30% of Ethiopia, now only stands at three. To save this land and the people, NABU, GTZ, "GEO-Schützt den Regenwald" and several other partners are running a PPP (Public-Private Partnership) conservation and development project in the Kaffa Province, contributing to improving the livelihoods of coffee producers and to developing sustainable coffee production and marketing to international quality standards. The living conditions of the coffee farmers are being improved through higher income and flanking social measures. Moreover, there is the plan to establish the first ever "UNESCO Man & Biosphere Reserve" here in Ethiopia , always with the goal to involve people in the management and protection of their land.

At the beginning of December, the German environmental organization NABU assigned me to travel to the Kaffa province and photograph as much as possible of the land and of the incredible biodiversity featuring these endangered forests. Once arrived in Bonga town, with less than 10 days to work there, I had the privilege to roam freely among the last afromontane rainforests of Ethiopia, but also had to face the frightful, impossible task of giving justice to this incredible place with my humble work. Blown away by the abundance of wildlife and the beauty of the different landscapes, I worked very hard, bringing home a little less than 4000 digital images.
Speeding across the dusty roads and sweating on the steep slopes of this region, with the valuable help of my friend and guide Yahiya Adem, I portrayed curious Guereza monkeys, angry Hippopotamus, mystical Bamboo forests and elusive Turacos. I have stepped across a Leopard trail and got painfully bitten by huge leaf-cutter ants. I admired dozens of bird species and met some of the most pleasant people ever. And, on my very last afternoon in Addis Abeba, I even had the chance to advocate for the establishment of the UNESCO Man & Biosphere Reserve in Kaffa! In a borrowed white shirt and grey jacket, I spoke and showed some quickly prepared pictures during a workshop day attended even by the President of Ethiopia and the Minister of Science and Technology!

(photo © S. Bender)

November - Can't see the forest for the trees

“Always watch where you are going. Otherwise, you may step on a piece of the Forest that was left out by mistake.” (Winnie the Pooh)



I have always found forests to be one of the most challenging subject for landscape photography. The more old, complex and beautiful the forest, the more the effort in framing a clean composition in the prevailing chaos and thus obtain effective images. This, together with the fact that I am 99% an open land type –a mountain, steppe, desert lover, doesn’t easily drag me into the woods with my camera. Still, it seems that this year fortunes of life are forcing me more and more to photograph under the tree canopy...

Earlier this year I was roaming free in the Tatra mountains of Slovakia for the multimedia conservation project „Tichà“ and I was first introduced to the most pristine forest in the area. An incredible anarchy of gigantic Arolla pines, Spruce and Rowan trees growing, dying and rotting in a perennial cycle. Bear tracks through the mosses covering all the forest floor. No sound nor sign of human activities. Not a single clan patch where to move freely nor an easy pattern to compose a picture. A moving wilderness dream and a true nightmare for a photographer. (A new gallery of my latest images from Slovakia has been recently uploaded on the project website: www.tichawilderness.com

Another forest, another country. The last weeks saw me now living and working full time in my new/old house in Abruzzo, mountainous region in Central Italy, dealing with renovation works while trying to catch up with old friends and the beloved wild places of my childhood. Doing research and scouting areas for new images, I was very excited to find out that some 50 km from my place, in almost unknown valley of a nearby National Park, scientists recently found what turned out to be the oldest beech forest of Europe. Protected by the surrounding mountains and the steep nature of the place, and due to a particular microclimate, some trees managed to grow here for more than 500 years! Besides the the wild and obvious appeal of the place, with trees literally covered by lichens and mosses and the feeling of being in a sacred place, I still have to get an image which could reflect the mood and essence of it. The picture(s) I have chosen for this month POTM represent two humble attempts to portray this incredible forest. More to come.

Another forest, another country, another continent. By the end of the month I will be „on assignment“ (first time!) in SW Ethiopia to photograph an highly endangered mountain rainforest ecosystem, where still grow wild specimens of Coffee, thrive monkeys and hunt leopards. I will be back home before Christmas and hopefully with many new images and stories to post.

August - Postcards from Linosa

"To the Sirens first shalt thou come, who beguile all men whosoever comes to them. Whoso in ignorance draws near to them and hears the Sirens' voice, he nevermore returns, that his wife and little children may stand at his side rejoicing, but the Sirens beguile him with their clear-toned song, as they sit in a meadow, and about them is a great heap of bones of mouldering men, and round the bones the skin is shrivelling. " (Homer, Odyssey - Book 12.)





Infant-like screams "gaooh-ak!...gaooh-ak!" calling all around me and thousands of wings flash in the beam of my headlamp as we walk in the darkness. It is a pitch-black night at a large Cory's shearwaters' colony on Linosa, tiny vulcanic island in the very middle of the Mediterranean Sea. On this remote dot of land, Italian soil halfway between the European continent and Africa, these pelagic birds still nest in large numbers in the holes among the black, razor-sharp lavic stones. Spending most of their lives in the open sea, shearwaters come to land just to breed and raise their youngs. It is the second half of July and, each night, protected by an almost complete darkness, the birds come back to their hollows, to exchange postion on the egg with their brooding partner -either male or female, or to feed the chicks that just hatched. As soon as the moon peers behind the sleepy volcanoes or the sun start to rises, this frenzy of wings and loud calls ends almost immediately and the elegant silhouettes of the sheawaters glide toward the immensity of the sea.

Where do they go during the day? How long do they stay away from their youngs? Where do they look for prey?

All questions, these, to which keen ornithologists, with the aid of most developed technologies, try to find answers in order to know more about this elusive species and help its conservation. I've spent about one week with one of these dedicated people -the friend and extraordinary field researcher Jacopo Cecere, who lived almost five months on Linosa surveying, observing, handling, measuring and ringing dozen of birds each night. Anytime he can put hands on a new bird, this would get a tiny, highly sophisticated and very expensive device -either a micro GPS satellitar transmitter or compass. With a bit of luck, once the bird would get caught a second time, at the entrance of its nest for example, the data collected by this instruments will tell Jacopo a lot about the life of the animal during its wanderings.

I have followed Jacopo every night on the rugged lava fields, wearing trekking shoes, kee-pads and elbow protections, to watch his work and portray the birds, crawling into warm and stinky hollows to photograph their nests (Thank you, Paulo! For your help, your ideas and...your second flash!;-)). But I have also managed to explore everyday the harsh, yet charming nature of the island, with its walls of black stones and cacti, which conceals lushy gardens and plants of delicious capers. Meet the hospital and proud people who live there. Observe the five colours of the Cala Pozzolana at sunset, glimpse smooth Ocellated skinks and the ubiquitous Maltese wall lizards in the bushes. Be on a boat among dolphins, with camera in one hand and white wine in the other...Eat great meals every single day and swim in clear waters so rich of life as I've never seen elsewhere in the Mediterranean.

Oh, how much I love this job! ;-)

Of bears and men

"All good things are wild and free." (Henry David Thoreau)



This is my first post and I would have liked to begin my own blog adventure writing of something nice about me and my photography. I had in mind a report from the last September, which I've entirely spent in the beautiful mountains of northern Slovakia, photographing wild Brown bears in their habitat. An intense experience of wilderness and freedom, in a large territory where these animals can still roam undisturbed. Nevertheless I feel the urge to write about something I thought could not happen anymore; something, which I, as nature enthusiast, find at the same time unbelievable and terribly shocking.

On the 2nd of October and in the following days, three Marsican brown bears, a male and two females, and two wolves have been found dead in an area of the Abruzzo National Park, Central Italy. The animals have clearly been killed by a poisoned bait (a dead goat) strategically placed in the forest. This is just the last in a long series of episodes of its kind in the history of the relationship between Man and Bear in this sector of Italy. The history of an ancient and unique coexistence in a rough and beautiful region, where a small population of bears (possibly an endemic subspecies) lived for millennia in the close proximity of humans and their agro-pastoral activities. A cultural "coevolution" of these two species, severely compromised in the last century, wich makes this area of lymestone peaks and vast beech forests worth of an exceptional conservation effort. The loss of three individuals for a population of just 30-50 animals of this endangered subspecies represents a true ecological disaster.
Moreover, this episode touches and affects very deeply all the people, who like me, come from this region of Italy and had the extraordinary privilege of observing these rare bears, free in the beautiful and fragile Apennines landscape. A sense of deep sadness and schoking confusion pervades me as if I had lost a very close friend.
One of the three killed bears, a large male named "Bernardo" (on the left in the above image, which shows it together with a female, May 2003), was a quite famous animal living in the western part of the protected area, showing a distinct synanthropy in its feeding behaviour with a taste for chickens and other livestock in the villages. Despite the problems due to the attacks to domestic animals, its fame came from its visibility in spring, which allowed many enthusiasts to observe its movements in the lushing green meadows on the look for a mate and, then, glimpse even the most intimate moments of a bear life. That is something many people of all ages and different countries had the chance of witness and won't forget. The public opinion, once in a while, is one and angry. The Italian section of the Worldwide Fund for Nature called for a 10,000-euro bounty to be put on the heads of the perpetrators. There's also a petition to ask for a reinforcement of the regulations concerning handling and purchase of poisonous and dangerous substances: you can sign online here.

May this be the very last episode of its kind!
May the culprits truly pay for what they've done and live forever with a sense of guilt!
May these bears have finally the freedom, the tranquillity and the protection they deserve!

For more information, read here.

The one below is an image from my last trip to Slovakia and shows a large female with one of her three cub feeding on blueberries just above the treeline. The autumnal colors and a stormy afternoon light gave to this rare scene an almost painterly look. I dedicate this picture to the memory of Bernardo and all the other bears killed by the ignorance of Man.