I thought I would write a short piece to try to give an indication as to what’s involved when participating in a wildlife photography trip in central Spain.
A group of four Photographers took a trip to El Taray Photographic Hides near Villacañas for seven days – now I know this sounds like a nice little ‘Jolly’ but behind-the-scenes there was an awful lot of effort to make things happen each day.

A lot of the preparatory work in booking flights, accommodation, transfers etc was done by one of the other members of our group (cheers Steve) so I cannot say too much about that. But, the daily routine was quite an arduous albeit rewarding and fun experience. Typically, a day began at about 5:15 am when it was time to rise, get cleaned up, dressed and ready for action and I’m not really that keen on getting out of bed at that time of the day! I would then prepare breakfast which was typically a cup of coffee and a breakfast bar which would have to see me through till lunchtime. A quick check of the camera bag to make sure everything that was needed was packed, batteries charged and memory cards ready was the final act before heading downstairs to be transported to the reserve by one of our guides.

We would then spend approximately 4 1/2 hours in a hide observing and photographing the wildlife on show, sometimes with quite long gaps between appearances as nature tends not to work to a timetable. Once our slot was finished, we would then be driven back to our hostel where we would take a shower, freshen up and head out for some lunch which would typically involve a couple of beers and a baguette – oh, and some lovely tapas as well. Of course, we were heading out at siesta time so it was fairly quiet but there were some fantastic little bars for us to sample the local cuisine. A quick trip to the supermarket followed to top up on essentials such as bottled water before we headed back for a quick nap before the afternoon session.

This second session of the day was always the warmest as the heat had built up in the 35°C afternoon sun. The purpose of shooting early in the morning and later at night was really all about getting the best quality of light on our subjects and avoiding the harsh midday sun. Typically, our second shoot would have us back at base just before 10 pm and it was a mad dash out for a couple more beers and something to eat before hitting the sack and grabbing a paltry five hours sleep. This routine was repeated for seven days by which time we were showing signs of wear and tear and some fatigue, particularly at Jeremy’s (El Burro) jokes.

I had in my head a list of species that I really wanted to photograph and some showed up fantastically well whilst others were more difficult to find, so next time I will temper my expectations and just concentrate on capturing what shows up. This was a great photographic opportunity, but never let anybody tell you that Wildlife Photography is easy and you just turn up and press the shutter button, there’s usually much more to it than that.

There was many a moment that created some lasting memories, but these are stories that will (for now) stay in the memory. I could of course be persuaded to recount some of them for a small reward.
Many thanks to the team plus Fra, Francisco and Nuño for their support and humour throughout.

Some images from the trip can be seen here.