Today's blog article is a bit delayed - unfortunately I was a bit knocked out for the last two weeks due to health problems, but now I can finally show you the second part of my bird series from Mallorca. After this one, you will probably understand why I was so excited to return from the island. This year, I managed to catch a few species that have driven me crazy in the last few years 😅
Firstly, the series features shots that I was able shoot out of the car. Highlights were for example the two red grouse shots and also a young hoopoe on a great tree, which I was very happy about.
About half of this series also shows shots I was able to take at a friend's house, with Gil. He is a real multi-talent and passionate birder and also hires out camouflage hides. This year I sat down in one of his beautiful hides to take pictures at a bird bath, where my highlight was, for example, the bathing Cirl Bunting, a very beautiful bird.
Above all, Gil helped me to realise an individual image idea that we agreed on weeks before my arrival. I already had the idea in mind last year, but at that time I unfortunately sat down without success. I wanted to take a picture of a hoopoe, which breed there in several places and can be seen flying around the island in droves every day, on one of the beautiful lichen-covered trees/branches.
It finally took me a lot of effort to find a suitable perspective including the branch and Gil helped me with one of his hides and also with a lot of manpower to realise the picture idea.
However, the best idea is of no use if the birds don't cooperate 😅 I needed patience: because the hoopoes didn't really want to perch where I wanted them to. Two sessions I went completely empty-handed and no hoopoes came at all, they were probably looking for food in other places. But on one evening with the best light, two adult hoopoes interacted strongly with each other on the ground, handing over food as a mating ritual. Three times they finally flew onto this one branch for a short time, Yippie 😀
As I had nice bokeh at this point but no more fast shutter speeds, I unfortunately didn't manage to capture all the great poses of the birds perfectly, for action shots I would have had to go to iso 12,800 and the loss of detail wasn't worth it to me 😉 However, a handful of images were of course sharp and they are here to be seen!
I think I can say that I have never been able to capture a more beautiful perching branch on a wild bird 😅 A big thank you to Gil, who I must have driven a little crazy with my constant ideas....
Now I hope you enjoy the pictures and have a good day 🖐
Many greetings,
Thomas
I hope you enjoyed the series 🖐