Winter is the best time to photograph some of European bird species such as Golden Eagle, Griffon Vulture, Spotted nutcracker and Dalmatian pelican. We visited Eastern Bulgaria and Northern Greece.
In Bulgaria we were based in Eastern Rodopi mountains, near a small town of Madzharovo. Here the focus was hide photography where griffon vultures and golden eagles frequent the sky. Two days in a hide yielded some great photos of the eagles – there was a family with female, male and last year’s juvenile eagle coming to feed. Griffon vultures showed up too, but they were already in their nesting season so they did not feed in a group.
Our next destination was northern Greece, Lake Kerkini national park. On the way we stopped at one of the lagoons near Aegean sea to photograph greater flamingoes.
We spent three nights at Lake Kerkini. My friend and great photographer Dancho Hristov took care of all arrangements so we could all focus solely on photography. Photographing pelicans was one of my all time highlights of wildlife photography. It was on pair with East Africa safaris!
On our return to Bulgaria, we stopped at a nearby ski resort to photograph nutcrackers. The weather conditions were perfect, it was snowing.
This was a delightful trip with great photo opportunities. I was able to test Nikon Z9 and 100-400mm S lens for the first time. Looking back at images – they did a great job!
Here is a link to the photography workshop in case you want to join!
