The second day of our photo tour began early. Our guide, Yani, picked us up at 7.00am and drove us to a cafe where we met with her colleague who has a 4x4 to take "Group1" to a Goshawk hide not too far away. Group 2 in the meantime had another coffee in a very crowded cafe.
Life is different in Spain. Our hotel bar opened at 5.00am and there was a constant stream of customers right through the morning. Today was Sunday so instead of workman's clothes order of the day was camouflage. This place was full of the enemy! Hunters.
I'm not totally against hunting, but when it's killing for the sake of killing I certainly am and some of these people will shoot at anything that moves. What worries me even more is that it was a common sight to see hunters having their breakfast coffee with a large brandy chaser then getting in the car and driving before opening fire. Where are the police? In the bar having coffee with them!
Anyway, 20 minutes later Yani returned and off we went up in to the mountains and a good hours drive away to the allocated hide for the day.
The scenery was stunning, the roads beautifully maintained and traffic free.
The hide? Well, I could immediately see problems! The hide is placed in front of another levelled off pile of soil. A small ( and frozen) drinking pool immediately in front of us. The problem was that the level of the ground was higher than eye level when you are sat down and as the ground was slightly undulating it was easy to not be able to get the birds feet in the shot. The minute they got to the pool the bottom half of the bird would totally vanish from view.
That said the visiting birds were excellent and if you waited for the moment all was well!
The male Cirl Bunting is a really striking bird.
The female not quite so but still very pretty.
They weren't the only Buntings either, we had visiting Rock Bunting too.
The last shot shows how the camera picks up those little blades of grass we should have noticed and plucked earlier.The next shot an example of missing feet!
The main attraction of this hide though were not the Buntings but the Winter Thrushes. At 1600m it was pretty chilly especially when the wind chill factor was taken in to account. It hadn't rained for some time either so demand for water, especially once the ice had been broken, should be high but it was gone midday and still no Thrushes.
Another star though was a single Brambling. We get them at home too but not commonly seen.
It was hanging out with a small flock of Chaffinch.
and they dominated the numbers, often getting in the way of a photograph of the target species.
I think I might have caught a fleeting glimpse of a Greenfinch but the only other small birds we saw were Robin and Great Tit.
Where were the stars of the show, the Ring Ouzels? I have seen photographs taken here with a dozen or more birds all at the drinking pool. Today nothing. We were beginning to think our luck was out. We were told by Yani the Ouzels would arrive in a distant tree, maybe 100m away, from there they would fly to the back of the raised area in front of us then quickly move forwards to the drinking pool. We needed to be quick to catch a full sight of them!
A pair of Blackbirds gave us some practice.
They both posed well too,
Then suddenly, a single Ouzel appeared!
I decided to gamble on my camera settings and use all available focus points in the hope of keeping track of the bird as it approached.
It seemed to work!
and I'm reasonably happy with the result
even if the wide aperture has reduced the depth of field and detail on the rear of the bird.
Not too bad when it stood side on though.
We had four separate visits, all by the same bird. Only two visits gave half decent photo opportunities but we were grateful for what we had., I have never been anywhere near as that to this species before.
I'd never been this close to a Mistle Thrush either! A very shy and alert bird they fly at any sign of humans.
This one was very wary too ( shame about that bit of grass again!) It could hear sounds of camera shutters behind the mirrored glass.
But the more cautious approach meant better photo opportunities.
and ultimately the desire the bird had for drink overcame caution!
Numerically we hadn't had as many birds as the previous day but in some ways it was better to have fewer birds than try and get a shot of a single one without others getting in the way.
We returned to the hotel happy with the day and eagerly looked forward to hearing how Group 1 had got on with the Goshawk.
Sadly, they were not exactly happy. Placed in the hide before it got light, the Goshawk had landed on a perch right in front of them but then flown away never to return almost immediately. They had been able to get some shots of Crested Tits as compensation but the star species had failed. An almost unknown occurrence it seems.
What had gone wrong? The birds are wary so until they start to feed it's imperative everyone keeps still and silent. Had the bird detected movement or sound? There was another possible reason it later was revealed. A Bonelli's Eagle was photographed flying past some time later and perhaps the Goshawk had seen it . We'll never know for sure but Group 1 would get another chance later in the week but before then our group was due to the Bonelli's Eagle hide the next day.
TBC
Life is different in Spain. Our hotel bar opened at 5.00am and there was a constant stream of customers right through the morning. Today was Sunday so instead of workman's clothes order of the day was camouflage. This place was full of the enemy! Hunters.
I'm not totally against hunting, but when it's killing for the sake of killing I certainly am and some of these people will shoot at anything that moves. What worries me even more is that it was a common sight to see hunters having their breakfast coffee with a large brandy chaser then getting in the car and driving before opening fire. Where are the police? In the bar having coffee with them!
Anyway, 20 minutes later Yani returned and off we went up in to the mountains and a good hours drive away to the allocated hide for the day.
The scenery was stunning, the roads beautifully maintained and traffic free.
The hide? Well, I could immediately see problems! The hide is placed in front of another levelled off pile of soil. A small ( and frozen) drinking pool immediately in front of us. The problem was that the level of the ground was higher than eye level when you are sat down and as the ground was slightly undulating it was easy to not be able to get the birds feet in the shot. The minute they got to the pool the bottom half of the bird would totally vanish from view.
That said the visiting birds were excellent and if you waited for the moment all was well!
The male Cirl Bunting is a really striking bird.
The female not quite so but still very pretty.
They weren't the only Buntings either, we had visiting Rock Bunting too.
The last shot shows how the camera picks up those little blades of grass we should have noticed and plucked earlier.The next shot an example of missing feet!
The main attraction of this hide though were not the Buntings but the Winter Thrushes. At 1600m it was pretty chilly especially when the wind chill factor was taken in to account. It hadn't rained for some time either so demand for water, especially once the ice had been broken, should be high but it was gone midday and still no Thrushes.
Another star though was a single Brambling. We get them at home too but not commonly seen.
It was hanging out with a small flock of Chaffinch.
and they dominated the numbers, often getting in the way of a photograph of the target species.
I think I might have caught a fleeting glimpse of a Greenfinch but the only other small birds we saw were Robin and Great Tit.
Where were the stars of the show, the Ring Ouzels? I have seen photographs taken here with a dozen or more birds all at the drinking pool. Today nothing. We were beginning to think our luck was out. We were told by Yani the Ouzels would arrive in a distant tree, maybe 100m away, from there they would fly to the back of the raised area in front of us then quickly move forwards to the drinking pool. We needed to be quick to catch a full sight of them!
A pair of Blackbirds gave us some practice.
They both posed well too,
Then suddenly, a single Ouzel appeared!
I decided to gamble on my camera settings and use all available focus points in the hope of keeping track of the bird as it approached.
It seemed to work!
and I'm reasonably happy with the result
even if the wide aperture has reduced the depth of field and detail on the rear of the bird.
Not too bad when it stood side on though.
We had four separate visits, all by the same bird. Only two visits gave half decent photo opportunities but we were grateful for what we had., I have never been anywhere near as that to this species before.
I'd never been this close to a Mistle Thrush either! A very shy and alert bird they fly at any sign of humans.
This one was very wary too ( shame about that bit of grass again!) It could hear sounds of camera shutters behind the mirrored glass.
But the more cautious approach meant better photo opportunities.
and ultimately the desire the bird had for drink overcame caution!
Numerically we hadn't had as many birds as the previous day but in some ways it was better to have fewer birds than try and get a shot of a single one without others getting in the way.
We returned to the hotel happy with the day and eagerly looked forward to hearing how Group 1 had got on with the Goshawk.
Sadly, they were not exactly happy. Placed in the hide before it got light, the Goshawk had landed on a perch right in front of them but then flown away never to return almost immediately. They had been able to get some shots of Crested Tits as compensation but the star species had failed. An almost unknown occurrence it seems.
What had gone wrong? The birds are wary so until they start to feed it's imperative everyone keeps still and silent. Had the bird detected movement or sound? There was another possible reason it later was revealed. A Bonelli's Eagle was photographed flying past some time later and perhaps the Goshawk had seen it . We'll never know for sure but Group 1 would get another chance later in the week but before then our group was due to the Bonelli's Eagle hide the next day.
TBC
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