You may be smiling mockingly proper now, pondering these phrases – “the proper time, the fallacious place” – sum up a misadventure you’ve had as a wildlife photographer. And since I do know that shared distress is half the distress, let me reassure you with this little story that you’re not alone.
I truthfully imagine there’s no different style of images as stubbornly depending on fickle fortune as wildlife images. Positive, realizing the surroundings and the habits of the species you’re after will dramatically enhance your odds. Nonetheless, there may be nonetheless loads of room for issues to go fallacious and so that you can go residence empty-handed.
And going residence empty-handed is precisely what I did someday final December, once I was heading to South Moravia to movie an interview with Oldřich Mikulica. On this picturesque, rolling panorama the place glorious grapes are grown for white wine at the moment, the waves of a prehistoric ocean as soon as lapped on the floor of a shallow sea. As a reminder of these historical instances, patches of vivid limestone nonetheless shine right here and there, rising like little islands of wilderness among the many vineyards.
As a result of the local weather here’s a little milder than in most elements of Europe, even in winter, it attracts a uncommon and really particular visitor every year – the Wallcreeper (Tichodroma muraria). You could possibly rely the variety of these exotically plumaged guests wintering in your complete Czech Republic on one hand. A real rarity.
So, I took the chance to cease by a location the place I knew a Wallcreeper had been noticed. Proper on the sting of a winery sits an outdated, deserted limestone quarry, and that’s the place I met up with my pal Zdeněk, additionally a eager photographer. In spite of everything, shared pleasure is double pleasure. Or is it shared ache that’s doubled? However let’s not get forward of ourselves.
We weren’t alone in that pure amphitheater. A household with binoculars had arrived earlier than us, additionally hoping to catch a glimpse of this elusive winter visitor. That was a very good signal – it was right here! Excited, I grabbed my digital camera, prolonged my 500mm lens with a teleconverter, and began scanning the terrain.
And since I undergo from the delusion that good pictures require discomfort, I picked a spot that match the invoice completely. A steep, free slope, sometimes dotted with thorny vegetation, means up excessive. Rock face in entrance of me, rock face behind me – good! The Wallcreeper was certain to go by means of right here a dozen instances an hour… at the least!
A couple of hours later, I used to be compelled to reassess that prediction. The superbly coloured hen, with its spherical pink wings and fluttering flight, resembling a tropical butterfly, was not notably shy. But it surely had a knack for protecting itself simply too far for my lens, even at 700mm. And even once I might see it far within the distance, it at all times managed to place itself with both a chunk of rock or at the least a department or tuft of grass exactly between us. It’s a sixth sense that birds appear to have.
By now, the solar was dipping low on the horizon, and I used to be stiff and sore from hours of sitting in a contorted place, when all of a sudden, the Wallcreeper fluttered proper over my head, and landed in a spot the place it could possibly be photographed… however not by me. No, it couldn’t be – it perched proper in entrance of Zdeněk! At that very second, he was standing on a flat, grassy clearing, his digital camera comfortably settled on a rock-steady tripod. The Wallcreeper, in full defiance of its earlier habits, landed in a spot so good, I couldn’t have staged it higher myself.
I’ll now share Zdeněk’s pictures.
Simply above Zdeněk’s eye stage, in a bit shaded crevice sheltered from the cruel solar, the hen started calmly selecting bugs and spiders from the cracks with its slender invoice. The poses it struck whereas feeding made it appear to be it had spent years in hen mannequin faculty. Truthfully, it couldn’t have been any higher.
As for me? I used to be sitting ridiculously excessive and too far-off for it to be value even making an attempt to repair my horrible place. All I might do was sit there, watch, and undergo quietly. I knew this opportunity wouldn’t come once more. Not at the moment, not this winter. I used to be possibly twenty meters away from an ideal picture alternative, however alas – proper time, fallacious place.
After I first arrived on the location, I had a totally completely different article in thoughts. One thing half concerning the biology of the Wallcreeper, half about photographing it. As a substitute, now we have a special article. Nonetheless, due to the kindness of my pal Zdeněk, I used to be at the least capable of share some pictures for you of this lovely hen. And in addition share a narrative of which each and every wildlife photographer has dozens of up their sleeve – a narrative of expectations, hope, and disappointment.
Luckily, the frustration flew away as rapidly because the Wallcreeper firstly of spring. On my means again from the sector, I noticed that I had as soon as once more skilled an exquisite and, the truth is, typical wildlife photographer’s day. Surrounded by lovely nature and absolutely immersed within the exercise I like most – photographing birds.