Mosquitoes Tornado - The story


The pictures were taken in Leziria Grande at Vila Franca de Xira, about 30 Km of Lisbon It was the 9th of March, 2004, and I was finishing my work that day and started to organize to go back, after an entire day of taking photos around. Suddenly, I noticed that there was a strange whirlwind a bit far from where I was. At first it seemed to be just a wind phenomenon and it was moving from the left to the right. after seconds of hesitation, as I thought it was coming towards me and had no time to use the tripod after a few seconds I pointed my camera at it and began shooting. Anyway the will of capturing the moment spoke louder and I stood there and took several photos, trying to register everything that was surrounding me. I really wanted to capture it before it reached me. I felt a bit fearful and nervous as there was no place to hide. The animals were very nervous, what contributed to feeling more anxious with the situation. I was at least 300 meters away from the twister, and I used a 200mmm lens to capture the image with my Nikon D3. However, it didn’t move. So, I got into the car and started driving towards it. Closer to it I then realized it was not the wind but mosquitoes whirl winding. In the picture you can notice that that those two horses standing near me looked very upset for having so many mosquitoes moving around them. The horses were nervous and being stung by the many insects, which were surrounding us and didn’t make part of the whirlwind. There were in fact many mosquitoes besides the ones inside the phenomenon. I must emphasize that at the beginning I didn’t realize that the whirlwind was actually formed by mosquitoes. If I had known it was mosquitoes from the start, maybe I wouldn’t have stayed there and I wouldn’t have taken the photos. It might be interesting to add that that place is known for having many mosquitoes as there are many water channels to transport water to the fields and to animals.

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