workshop - Paul Miguel Wildlife Photography

Serbia Long Eared Owls Trip Report December 2023

Paul Miguel Abroad, Birds, owls, Serbia, Tour, Winter 2nd January 20242nd January 2024bird photography tour, birding, birds, long eared owls, owl photography, owls, paul miguel, serbia, tour, workshop 0 Comment

“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

Landscape Photography: How to Photograph Frost

Paul Miguel Landscape, Nature, Winter 16th November 20173rd March 2019canon 1DX, frosted, frosty, how to photograph frost, induro tripod, leeds, nature, photo, photography, polarising filter, season, uk, weather, west yorkshire, winter, workshop 0 Comment

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.