February was a particularly busy month with trips to both Poland and Finland. For the 4th time, Marek Kosinski and I led a tour to photograph Bialowieza's wild herds of bison, forest birds and the Strictly Protected Area. We were very lucky with the weather with wall-to-wall sunshine for pretty much the entire tour with snow remaining on the ground. The first couple of mornings were very chilly at -15 C providing the group with frost-covered bison images but, as the days went by, the temperature climbed to a very mild (for eastern Poland anyway) +2 degrees. Once our clients departed for the airport I stayed on a further 3 days in an attempt to photograph white-tailed eagles from Marek's hides as we will be incorporating these in next year’s itinerary.
I have visited this region a number of times now and unless the bison are in exceptional light or doing something different to that which I have captured previously, I find myself shooting other subjects. It was such a beautiful morning, how could I resist?......
As the day drew on we encountered a herd of bison on one of the many forest tracks we drove upon in order to locate them. You just never know what you might encounter as a short while earlier we came across a herd of red deer.
Our first day concluded with a herd wandering across a large meadow at sunset.
Marek's woodpecker hide was fantastic with numerous species (not just woodies!) making a constant appearance. Great-spotted, middle-spotted, grey-headed and white-backed woodpeckers all turned up as did hawfinch (7 counted at once), siskin, brambling, bullfinch, jay, nuthatch, tree sparrow and greenfinch. We used pop-up 2-person hides which enabled us to position them where we pleased according to the lenses we were using.
Half a day was spent in the magical Strictly Protected Area, the largest and finest example of primeval woodland to be found anywhere in lowland Europe. Even though I have visited this site on many occasions, I always find new images to make. Infact, you could spend an entire lifetime in this forest alone and still only scratch the surface. I forced myself not to be too exacting with my compositions or else you lose the "chaos" that makes this woodland so unique.
Marek's eagle hides are very comfortable with lots of room and heating making the 12 hour vigils very tolerable. On my first day at dawn I captured these buzzards fighting over a meal. I have never been the kind of photographer that gets too hung up on noise and pixels, much preferring to push the camera in order to record the event. Quality is secondary when shooting subjects like this in such marginal conditions.
Later on that morning and afternoon, a pair turned up but stayed for just a few minutes. At sunset, a white-tailed perched in a very photogenic tree bathed in warm late afternoon sunlight and remained for half an hour.
The following day was not quite so productive although once again buzzards were very close to the hide and I could hear the eagles calling. But, on my third and final day I had the most incredible experience with 4 eagles making an appearance at once and continued to return, at intervals, throughout the day!
The conditions were just as I had hoped, too – dank with sleet adding a more sombre, atmospheric feel to the images. In between visits by the eagles, buzzards would often drop in to feed, closer to the hide.
It was all go that day. A fox came and stayed for several minutes, much to the annoyance of the ravens!
Squabbling between the eagles would often break out and it wasn't until much later on in the session when reviewing images during a quiet spell that I noticed this one which will be appearing in the A Moment with Nature section in the May issue of Outdoor photography. A wonderful experience (as you can imagine) which reinforced my decision on incorporating these hides onto next year's programme.
If you're interested in attending next year's tour to photograph bison, forest birds, white-tailed eagle, beaver and elk, please contact me at rmcanis@msn.com to receive the full itinerary.
