Myself and two Photographer friends booked 6 days at Aragón Hides in the north of Spain in early July. One of our trio had been here before but it was a new location for myself so I was really looking forward to the opportunities that it would present, I wouldn’t be disappointed. This was a trip that we arranged ourselves from the transport to the accommodation and to the hides themselves. This is a method I much prefer as it allows for maximum flexibility but also ensures that we get what we want rather than what we are given.
The area is well known for Red & Black Kites and a number of eagle species, but with any wildlife there are no guarantees on what you will see and whether the sights will be photogenic or not so it can be a little hit and miss. However, there was almost non-stop action at the hides that we visited with appearances by some special birds, including several visits by a splendid looking golden eagle which landed no more than 10m away from us and posed beautifully for the camera. It is really easy to get the standard shots of these impressive birds and I took many, but, it’s that special moment that we are really waiting for and hoping will happen in front of us to give us that ‘award-winning’ Image – hopefully, I will have a few.
Over the six days I took just over 20,000 images which seems an awful lot but considering that the camera will shoot at 30 frames per second and at times I was using pre-capture too then I’m not surprised that I racked up so many shots. The big task upon returning is to start organising the images in such a way that I can initially cull the weaker ones and then edit the better images. The process is still ongoing, and will probably still be ongoing in a couple of months time, however, I think I’ve spotted a few good ones and I’ve begun to edit – I envisage adding something in the region of 70-80 images to my portfolio so I’m going to have to be fairly brutal in discarding the ones that don’t hit the mark.
Temperature ~ 42°C
Days ~ 6
Images ~ 20,000+
Hides ~ 3
Species ~ 67+
Equipment used:
Canon R5 mk2
Canon 100-500L IS
Canon 1.4x TC
Giottos CF Tripod
Neewer CF Gimbal head
A typical day on our little adventure involved dragging myself out of bed at 4:45 am and getting a quick breakfast and a coffee before setting out for the meet-up point. We would spend 4-5 hours in the hide then return to the restaurant in Farlete for lunch and a beer. Back to base to re-charge batteries and download the images then try to grab an hour’s sleep. Before long we were back on the road for the second shoot of the day for another 4 hours or so. After a day in blistering heat we just had to have another beer before bed to quench the thirst. We also had 2 sessions under floodlights and saw Owls plus a small range of other creatures. These days finished back at base by 1:30am giving a whopping 3¼ hours before starting all over again.
This short article shows a few of the images that I have taken, but there are many more to be seen by clicking on the nature section of the menu bar, then Spanish wildlife – Or simply click here
If you want to know more or are thinking of going here yourself, drop me a line and ask away.