Birds of Pálava

The flapping of its wings is soundless, inaudible from a distance. I wouldn’t have spotted it if I hadn’t casually looked up right in that moment. I hold the camera up to my face, aim the lens at the sky, and click click click. I’m fairly sure these photos aren’t great. For one thing, I started shooting when the bird was almost past me, so I’ve likely only photographed it from the back. Also, it’s a bird of prey, and one thing I’ve noticed so far is that birds of prey don’t quite like to pose for me.

I’m on my usual weekend route by the Nové Mlýny reservoir in Pálava, a Protected Landscape Area and UNESCO biosphere reserve located about 50 km south of Brno, quite close to the Austrian border. For the past few weeks I’ve been walking up and down the same stretch of trail for a few hours at least once a week – the trail heading west of the village of Dolní Věstonice, on the southern side of the reservoir.

I was already familiar with the area, but since I’ve taken wildlife and bird photography, these lakeshore walks have taken up a wholly new meaning. These skies, these trees are teeming with diverse birdlife to an extent I’d never fully appreciated. Now that I do appreciate it, I’m trying to catch up on all of it, multiple consecutive shots at a time.

Grey heron

At first it felt a bit weird to be there and not (only) photograph the landscape around me. It’s not something I’d ever been used to, not something I’d ever done before. My newly acquired 100-400mm lens felt heavy and cumbersome in my hands, and carrying it handheld made my arm muscles stiff. It also felt too conspicuous , too showy in the crowds of biking families and fishermen populating the trails on weekends.

Then a Caspian gull flew by, and I took 1-2-3 photos of it. Not long after that there flew a common tern (instantly and still my absolute favourite), and I did the same: more photos. Then I also photographed a juvenile white swan, a common swallow, a white wagtail, and a black-headed gull. The week after I took shots of a white stork, a Eurasian bittern, more common terns, the first little egret and the first grey heron, both in flight. The next two weeks were all about little egrets and grey herons, and at one point there was also a common sandpiper nearby.

It felt less and less awkward to hold the long lens, and I stopped caring about the onlooking passers-by. A couple of times I ran into the same middle-aged couple strolling down the lakeshore. I couldn’t help noticing that he was wearing pro-looking binoculars, which he held up to his face every now and then, hoping to spot birds. ‘He’s one of us’, I thought, ‘but he looks like a pro and he looks like a regular’.

Little egret

So yeah, birds – this is pretty much what this summer has been all about. No major trips, no travelling: birds. I’ve only been photographing birds all summer, so birds are also what I mostly get to write about.

But also, this is more than just the story of how I got into bird photography after returning from Svalbard. It’s also and especially the story of how there’s always something new to explore, discover and get excited about. It’s okay to want something new, something different at some point, nor does it mean no longer being passionate about what had always interested you till then.

Sometimes things happen, which trigger these changes, and they propel them in a way that makes them inevitable, something that is surely going to happen because it just is. It feels right, it feels real, and it makes you feel alive and happy. When something like that happens, you simply cannot look away.