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Some birds are harder to photograph than others and on a sliding scale of difficulty the wallcreeper is at the extreme end. Living high in the mountains and hard to find it breeds on inaccessible cliff faces in deep gorges where the sun rarely penetrates. It is fast moving and its grey and black plumage blends into the rock face that it spends its life on.
When Spatia Wildlife, a tour company in Bulgaria contacted me to say they had a suitable nest site it was too hard to resist. Dobry picked us up from Sofia airport and we headed towards the Rhodope mountains in the south of Bulgaria.
Usually when I fly I take the 500mm f4 lens as it makes life easier getting through airports with all the restrictions on weight, etc. For this trip however I took the 600mm f4 instead. The extra 20% of pulling power would be appreciated as although accessible the nest site was still 12 metres above the road. My favourite airline got our custom. Easyjet suits me well as they have no weight restrictions on hand luggage and I can get all my camera gear on easily. Their website is also a joy to use and the check in desks move the queues faster than any airline I know. Boarding the plane is also so much quicker as passengers have no seat numbers. You just sit at the first vacant seat.
On the first morning we checked the site out and it was uncomfortably high. 12 metres and very steep, but Dobry knew of a van we could borrow in a nearby village. We could stand and place our tripods on the roof. Unfortunately when we went to investigate it was missing. Down the road was another transit sized van complete with roof rack. Dobry knocked on a few doors to find the owner and yes we could borrow it, but it had no gearbox. We were welcome to tow it if we wanted.
We tried another van. This one was much bigger, like a furniture van and the roof looked solid. We would need a ladder to get on top. Once found the owner was happy for us to borrow it for a few days, but the van had no battery. He might be able to get one for tomorrow.
I was optimistic about this second van. It was high enough to make a real difference, almost as good as a cherry picker. Dobry had been thinking about cherry pickers. In the café where we took lunch a group of what looked like council workman provided Dobry with suggestions as to where he might find one. The first two options were a long way off and the drive came to nothing.
Then we found one a bit closer to our nest site that was up for sale, but also available for rent. The following day it was delivered to us and parked on the mountain road. Once the supporting legs were lowered I climbed in to the cradle with my camera gear. I asked the driver for instructions on how to operate it. He suggested I pulled a lever and see what happened. There was a choice of three and after a bit of experimenting I felt an expert, but not one with a good head for heights. The driver warned me not to swing out over the gorge. There was no way I could do that, it was a long way down.
The wallcreeper arrived and continued to feed its young even as I practiced swinging the cradle about, but initially I stopped half way up to the nest and gave the bird time to get used to me. After 20 minutes I went up higher and level to the nest. The photography was now as easy as it would ever get with a wallcreeper. I was in the perfect position, but the light was dull and for much of the afternoon it rained heavily. I tried full flash, fill in flash and simple ambient light down to 1/100th of a second. Not only is it a fast moving bird, but the cradle rocked and the tripod wobbled badly as I could not spray the legs out fully.
It was simply a matter of taking as many pictures as possible at fast iso settings of either 800 or 1600 and hoping.
The following day was a little brighter in the morning and I even tried a little flight photography. Wallcreepers are wonderful flyers. Like slow, fluttering butterflies with the red in the wings flashing as they go. Having spent a few days with them they are now my favourite bird in flight. Far more impressive than soaring eagles, gannets hanging in the wind of exotic hummingbirds.
Wallcreepers feed their young on the nest for 28 days, which is an incredibly long time for such a small bird. 12-14 days would have been my guess, but the parents do not feed as often as I would expect and sometimes there were long waits between feeds.
When Spatia Wildlife, a tour company in Bulgaria contacted me to say they had a suitable nest site it was too hard to resist. Dobry picked us up from Sofia airport and we headed towards the Rhodope mountains in the south of Bulgaria.
Usually when I fly I take the 500mm f4 lens as it makes life easier getting through airports with all the restrictions on weight, etc. For this trip however I took the 600mm f4 instead. The extra 20% of pulling power would be appreciated as although accessible the nest site was still 12 metres above the road. My favourite airline got our custom. Easyjet suits me well as they have no weight restrictions on hand luggage and I can get all my camera gear on easily. Their website is also a joy to use and the check in desks move the queues faster than any airline I know. Boarding the plane is also so much quicker as passengers have no seat numbers. You just sit at the first vacant seat.
On the first morning we checked the site out and it was uncomfortably high. 12 metres and very steep, but Dobry knew of a van we could borrow in a nearby village. We could stand and place our tripods on the roof. Unfortunately when we went to investigate it was missing. Down the road was another transit sized van complete with roof rack. Dobry knocked on a few doors to find the owner and yes we could borrow it, but it had no gearbox. We were welcome to tow it if we wanted.
We tried another van. This one was much bigger, like a furniture van and the roof looked solid. We would need a ladder to get on top. Once found the owner was happy for us to borrow it for a few days, but the van had no battery. He might be able to get one for tomorrow.
I was optimistic about this second van. It was high enough to make a real difference, almost as good as a cherry picker. Dobry had been thinking about cherry pickers. In the café where we took lunch a group of what looked like council workman provided Dobry with suggestions as to where he might find one. The first two options were a long way off and the drive came to nothing.
Then we found one a bit closer to our nest site that was up for sale, but also available for rent. The following day it was delivered to us and parked on the mountain road. Once the supporting legs were lowered I climbed in to the cradle with my camera gear. I asked the driver for instructions on how to operate it. He suggested I pulled a lever and see what happened. There was a choice of three and after a bit of experimenting I felt an expert, but not one with a good head for heights. The driver warned me not to swing out over the gorge. There was no way I could do that, it was a long way down.
The wallcreeper arrived and continued to feed its young even as I practiced swinging the cradle about, but initially I stopped half way up to the nest and gave the bird time to get used to me. After 20 minutes I went up higher and level to the nest. The photography was now as easy as it would ever get with a wallcreeper. I was in the perfect position, but the light was dull and for much of the afternoon it rained heavily. I tried full flash, fill in flash and simple ambient light down to 1/100th of a second. Not only is it a fast moving bird, but the cradle rocked and the tripod wobbled badly as I could not spray the legs out fully.
It was simply a matter of taking as many pictures as possible at fast iso settings of either 800 or 1600 and hoping.
The following day was a little brighter in the morning and I even tried a little flight photography. Wallcreepers are wonderful flyers. Like slow, fluttering butterflies with the red in the wings flashing as they go. Having spent a few days with them they are now my favourite bird in flight. Far more impressive than soaring eagles, gannets hanging in the wind of exotic hummingbirds.
Wallcreepers feed their young on the nest for 28 days, which is an incredibly long time for such a small bird. 12-14 days would have been my guess, but the parents do not feed as often as I would expect and sometimes there were long waits between feeds.
Wallcreepers in Bulgaria June 2009
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