Serbia Long Eared Owls Trip Report December 2023

Serbia Long Eared Owls Trip Report December 2023

 
“Until this trip I’d only ever seen one Long eared Owl in my long birding/photography life. With Paul’s knowledge and using a great English speaking local wildlife specialist we were able to locate and see around 600 of these spectacular birds. His guidance on technique and in-depth photographic skills helped me get many quality shots of this gorgeous species – I’m proud of them, with wonderful photos to add to my portfolio. Thank you Paul.”
 
Ian Tilden: Long eared Owl Tour, December 2023
 

This year I met with my 2 clients, Ian and Dawn, at Heathrow – to travel to Belgrade together. As we exited the airport we were greeted by heavy snow – something I haven’t seen in Serbia in quite some time! As we travelled north it continued to come down and we could see just how much was lying, both on the ground and in the trees. It’s hard to put into words my excitement… Long eared Owls in snow is something of a dream shot for me.. so perhaps it would become reality this time? Unfortunately when we arrived at our hotel the snow was pretty much gone (there was much more down south) and I had to accept that ‘Snowy Owl’ images were probably out of the question..!

Over the next 3 days, with our guide (my good friend David), we visited a number of urban locations to photograph the roosting Long eared Owls. David is part of a research group, which includes ringing Owls and monitoring winter roost sites. He’s also incredibly knowledgeable on Serbian wildlife and always happy to answer any questions about his country. We visited some reliable roost sites where I’ve previously photographed and also some new ones which I hadn’t seen before. This is part of the appeal of this tour – whilst some roosts largely do stay put, some can move from year to year – offering brand new opportunities for photography. Roosts can be smaller, around 50 or so (yes, that’s right) whilst in some places they can easily be 200 or more. At some of the best roost sites it is not unusual to find 20 or even 30 owls in one tree. Hint: there are always way more Owls than you think!

(If you’d like to see some Video Footage of the Long Eared Owls in Serbia – Watch my YouTube Video from a 2018 trip)

We visited roosts by main roads, public parks, around churches.. and by blocks of flats! The Long eared Owls shelter where they can. Not only does it keep them out of the elements, but I suspect it is also warmer due to the heat from nearby buildings.

Whilst we were always looking up to the Owls, there were a couple of occasions where we found birds lower down. One great site was a public park where we found a small group in a conifer tree. This was much lower and I’d estimate around 15 feet high. With low light levels I really had to push my ISO.. not great when I was using a Canon R7! This image was taken with an RF 600mm attached.

One of the great things about the Owls is that you have plenty of time to experiment and try things out. It also means I can work closely with each client, as we’re shooting, to make the most of each opportunity.

The weather wasn’t particularly kind and it was cloudy almost all of our time there. But there was almost no rain, and the winds were never strong. On the last day there was an incredible hoar-frost and a thick fog that lasted for most of the day. We were lucky to see a few owls flying; this is uncommon in the day but the birds do sometimes shift their position in the roost. I managed to react quickly to get this – my one and only flight shot!

Unlike my Summer Serbian Tour, the days are short. We returned each day around 4pm and had plenty of time to review our images. This is something I always offer on this trip – in the evenings I will look at your images and see where we can make improvements, whether it’s Exposure, Lighting, or Composition.

On our last morning we had one of my favourite photo sessions. This roost proved to be excellent last year.. and it delivered again this time. Here the Owls roost in Birch trees – and the leaves had barely fallen. The yellow colour made for some beautiful images, both as wider shots and close ups. We experimented with our compositions, including using the leaves as blurred foreground.]

The Long eared Owl Winter Tour was a successful trip. Lots of Owls (there always is!), Serbian hospitality and some wonderful food! We also saw plenty of Buzzards, a flock of Common Cranes, Kestrels and Sparrowhawk. Most winters we do see Hen Harriers too, but we didn’t really dedicate the time to that on this trip. Thanks to my wonderful clients who really enjoyed the Owls and were willing to experiment with their photography. We had lots of fun and a lot of laughs!

I’ll be running this tour again in December 2024 and 2025 and I only take 2 Clients at a time. If you’d like to join me, send me an Email: paul@naturephotographycourses.co.uk 

It really is the best place to go for these magnificent birds!

Click Here to see my other Wildlife Photography Tours

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Photographing Red Grouse in Yorkshire

photographing red grouse

Ever since my first visit to Swaledale many moons ago I’ve been in love with Red Grouse. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve visited over the years. One particular location provides reliable opportunities with Grouse frequenting the roadside heather. Every day is different but it’s not unusual to get extremely close views if you use the car as a mobile hide. I recently spent a winter’s morning up on the moors, using my Canon 500mm f4 Mark i lens. The technique is fairly simple – just wind down the window and use a good quality beanbag as your camera support. Beanbags provide particularly good support for long lenses and I personally prefer this to using a tripod.

To increase stability I also push down slightly on the barrel of the lens with my left hand; with good technique you can use surprisingly slow shutter speeds if the bird is relatively still. Red Grouse are beautiful birds but they seem to have that kind of plumage that camera’s don’t like! If you’re using off centre focus points and the camera is struggling, try switching to the centre focus point and recomposing – you might find the focus more accurate. Above all try to spend as much time as you can when you find a photogenic bird: capturing some kind of behaviour will really lift your images.

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Serbian Owls Images

serbianowls

A number of my images from my Serbian Owl project made it into BBC Wildlife this month, December 2018. I’ve been visiting Serbia, and in particular Kikinda, for a few years documenting the remarkable owls roosts.

serbianowls

Every winter huge gatherings of these birds arrive across towns and villages of Vojvodina. It’s an incredible experience and I’ve been lucky to spend time with these fascinating birds. Check out my Blog Post on Long eared Owls including my twilight images. If you’re interested in joining me for a winter bird watching and photography tour in Serbia Click Here 

Watch the video below on my Serbian Owl project.

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Landscape Photography: How to Photograph Frost

Landscape Photography: How to Photograph Frost

I spend a lot of time watching the weather – and when temperatures are set to dip below zero I’m ready to get out with the camera. True winter weather is one of the joys of landscape photography – unfortunately it’s something that’s been sadly lacking in the U.K. for the past few years. On this particular morning, temperatures were forecast to reach -4 degrees in rural areas. Combined with low winds, the conditions were looking good and I was up early to visit a local site close to Leeds, West Yorkshire.

I arrived to glorious conditions – thick frost… everywhere! In these situations the biggest difficulty is often choosing what to photograph. Rather than begin to shoot straight away, I took a stroll around the area, noting the best compositions and trying to decide where the light would hit first. Big undulations in the land meant that certain areas wouldn’t get any sun for quite some time. There were a few good options but I started with a simple composition of the frosted heather and Birch trees, using my 50mm lens. Here I wanted everything sharp so I used f/14 to ensure good depth of field.

 

What I really liked about the image, apart from the frost, was the slight mist in the air, helping to add a little more atmosphere. I tried the image with a polarising filter and whilst it enhanced colour and contrast – it seemed to take away from the atmosphere. I actually preferred the shot without the filter – and with a little overexposure in post-processing.

Very quickly the sun was up and beginning to cast strong light onto higher ground. Lower down the frost still stay thick, having not received any sunlight. This led to a really interesting scene with a mixture of light and shade. While the sun was strongly illuminating an Oak tree and surrounding heather, the foreground remained in shadow. Often in strong light the shadow areas can be too dark but here the frost was making a huge difference in brightening things up. I took a number of images trying both landscape and portrait compositions. A polariser improved this image when rotated fully.

 

Drawn by the strong colour and contrast I moved in closer and shot the Oak tree and heather, this time using my wide angle 24mm lens, again with a polarising filter. By this point the frost was beginning to melt – often the case here in the U.K where such opportunities can be fleeting.

Often it’s so tempting to photograph the wider views but the smaller details can sometimes provide better images. Whilst shooting a wide landscape I kept looking at the frosty Oak nearby. Many of the leaves were still frosted and they showed up well against the shaded background. I switched to my 100mm lens and began to investigate compositions. The light was beautiful. Shooting almost into the sun, the colourful leaves were perfectly lit whilst the shaded background added more winter atmosphere to the image.  For this exposure I used an aperture of f5.6. This was definitely my favourite shot so far!

This was my first frosty photography session of the season and the conditions could barely have been better. With the sun getting higher I decided the best images had been taken and I set off for home, albeit taking a brief detour to capture these birch trees in semi-shade against autumn colour.

All images were taken with a Canon 1DX mark i using Canon 24mm, 50mm and 100mm lens and Induro tripod. If you’d like to learn the skills involved in capturing landscape images like these then why not book a One to One Nature Photography Workshop To see more of my landscape photography check out the Photo Galleries  on my website.

 

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Long Eared Owl Photography

Long Eared Owl Photography

It was a few short words in a travel magazine that began it all: my obsession with Long eared Owls. I had never heard of the owl roosts in Serbia, but after researching on the net I decided to try my luck at photographing the Long eared Owl roosts that occur each winter in Serbia.

long eared owl

My first visit was in November 2015. After researching other locations for bird photography I spent my last day in the northern town of Kikinda, famed for its owl roosts. The day was wall to wall sunshine; glorious. At first the owls were barely noticeable, but then I suddenly spotted my first one – perched on a clear branch overlooking a well used path. It’s then that you begin to see what’s really there. As I walked under the trees I could make out another, slightly hidden behind the foliage – and then another, and then… well, when you really start to look you realise there’s actually about six all sat within a few feet of each another! I found one conifer tree and counted around twenty, all sat quietly above me. That day I barely stopped, shooting as much as I could. Most images were taken with a Canon 400mm and a 1.4x extender but sometimes it was possible to shoot with the 400mm alone.

longearedowl photography

owlphotography

howtophotographowls

Long eared Owls have been roosting in Kikinda for years – in huge numbers. The surrounding farmlands are perfect for hunting, providing the owls with a high number of voles. With virtually no surrounding trees, the town makes the perfect (and only) roosting site. The streets are lined with both deciduous and evergreen trees, ideal for owls to roost during the day. The added heat of the town also helps the birds to avoid the harsh temperatures of the Serbian winter.

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twilightowls

Seeing the owls in such numbers in this fascinating urban habitat had really got under my skin. I just had to go back! February 2016 saw my second visit, but with poor weather it proved to largely a recce trip. I was introduced to two new owl roosts though – both with photographic potential.

owlroostphotography

longearedowl roosts

It was December 2016 when I made my third visit. Through new Serbian contacts I was granted access to higher floors of buildings; enabling me to get to the same level as the owls! With a spell of settled weather forecast I booked my flight with literally two days notice. This trip was undoubtedly the best so far. It also drew the attention of Serbian TV who Filmed me in Kikinda! During this trip I was able to get to eye level with a number of owls and explore more locations for future visits. Things were looking good..how to photograph owls

owlphototour

One of the most exciting aspects was the possibility of capturing images at twilight. This would be virtually impossible had it not been for the nearby street lights. The result was images of Long Eared Owls with twilight skies lit purely by a mixture of natural and artificial light. Magical!

twilight owl photo

owlphototwilight

This type of photography sure does test your long lens technique.! The only way to achieve pin sharp results with my newly acquired Canon 500mm lens was to rest a beanbag on top of an empty tripod head. Shutter speeds were insanely slow… and ISOs high. But.. it was possible – and the results… absolutely stunning! I really doubt it’s possible to do this anywhere else on the planet. It truly is unique.

nightphotoowls

longearedowl night

owlroostserbia

There’s no doubt the Long eared Owl roosts of Serbia are a true spectacle. Watching them sat in the trees peering down at passers by is quite bizarre. Its urban wildlife at its best!

If you’re interested in this unique experience why not book yourself onto one of the Serbian Owl Photography Tours in December. Serbia is a country full of surprises and this surely is one of its best.

owlphototour

 

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