cuisses de grenouille sil vous plait...

In other words....Frog-legs anyone..??

I went back to the Bittern site where i photographed the Bitterns in the last post. Today was another succes as there where two Bitterns active out on the ice. One of them was hunting the edges of the reed bed and all of a sudden i saw it reaching out for something from underneath the ice...There it was...a big fat Frog!





Was hoping for such action but never expected it...
Tomorrow i will revisit the site to get some more shots and hopefully more of the action as i will be hosting another "Winter-Wonderland-Workshop" with the Bitterns as main point of focus..litterally..





So thumbs up for tomorrow and hope the Bitterns will be cooperative again and may the light be with us.

Mr. Camouflage..Exposed

Maybe some of you will remember one of my first posts on this weblog back in February of 2009 called "Masters of Camouflage",followed by another post of this mysterious creature called "Mr. Camouflage strikes again". I was talking about a Bittern ofcourse. A beautiful and mysterious bird that rarely steps out of it's natural habitat of the reed bed. It blends in perfectly and is very hard to detect.



There is a patch of reed bed near my home that i pass perhaps hundreds of times a year and i always think...this would be great Bittern territory....but i never see one...
Today i had about an hour or so to go out so i passed the same patch again and today it finally happened! There he was..fouraging out on the ice..a beautiful Bittern!
After taking some shots of it a few people on bycicles passed by and the Bittern decided to fly off and i finally got a couple of Bittern in flight shots that had crossed my mind several times..


I hope to be able to get some more shots of this amazing bird in the days to come and for those of you who are interested in doing a "Winter Wonderland"-Workshop with me (see 2 posts below this one)..be sure i will take you to several of my Bittern hotspots as they are out there right now!

Camera Magazine Interview

Recently i was interviewed by the Dutch Camera Magazine. This is a magazine for both amateur and professional photographers and is well known for it's high quality articles and information. I was very pleased to see the interview being published this week and here's some scan's i made of the article.

Inside the article is a coupon for 15.- euro discount on my regular workshops for all Camera Magazine and the first 5 participants even get the workshop for free as they will be paid by Camera magazine! So be quick and make sure you are one of them!

For more information on Camera Magazine see: http://www.cameranet.nl/

Winter Wonderland

We have had a beautiful winter so far with loads of snow and ice. Ofcourse these are hard times for birds and they have to head out further from there regular feeding grounds in order to find food. For us nature photographers a great time to look for birds and other wildlife as they are more easy to get close to then usual.







In winter times i always host my 1:1 winter workshops wich means i take a fellow photographer with me in my car and we drive around my local patch to look for wildlife or we head out to a certain area to look for birds and wildlife with the main aim at winter visitors and scarce species. Last friday i had another one of those workshops and took fellow photographer Dennis Martens out to our southern province of Zeeland which is well known for its winter waterfowl and waders.







There is always plenty of wildlife around during these harsh and cold days. From White-fronted Geese to Tufted Ducks and from Eurasian Wigeons to Hen Harriers it is a joy to be out even if my fingers freeze off..










Besides these lovely birds we where very pleased to also have a chance at what was a mystery bird to me so far as i could never get a decent shot...the Short-eared Owl. A beautiful Owl species wich is very scarce to our country.



Besides the Short-eared Owl there was another bird high on my wishlist..
This Woodcock (Scolopax rusticola) wich is largely nocturnal, spending most of the day in dense cover.Their camouflage is one of the best i have ever seen in the animal kingdom and even now it is not easy to find them so i was very glad to come across this beauty.



Another thing i like about winter time is that low warm sunlight that lights up the wildlife in a very warm and gorgeous setting.







And some more images from the recent trips out into "Winter Wonderland"...










If you are interested in a 1:1 tuition workshop like this one or in one of the other workshops just send me an e-mail for information to: info@jeroenstel.com