Regal Eagles - by Andy Astbury

It’s a few months since the idea of eagle photography in the depths of a Norwegian winter was first put to me. I try to specialise in photographing ‘different slants’ on UK wildlife and nature so the idea was somewhat contrary to my self-imposed remit. However, after about 30 minutes of careful thought I decided that the idea was indeed a 'goer' as both the golden eagle and white-tailed sea eagle could be classed as British species – after all, with a degree of application, one can photograph both these species from within British shores.

But within Britain these eagles are difficult to both find and approach in such a manner as to give the photographer any real chance of more than what I term 'happy snaps' – in Norway I was being offered the services of a top-rate guide, dedicated to giving photographers what they craved – close encounters of the 'massive beak' kind! And so, decision made, and costs calculated – which were all recalculated about 50 times over due to the media-induced 'credit crunch' – we now had to turn our attention to the art of getting there! Seeing as I had not been on a commercial flight since three days before 9/11 – (I must get out more!) – I realised that I was going to be severely limited as to the amount of equipment I could take. The big question was 200–400mm VR Nikkor plus teleconverters (as per everyone’s recommendation) OR my trusty 300–800mm tank barrel? I decided on the latter, as it would give me far greater control over my backgrounds and foregrounds.

I won’t go into the gory details of what I did to a Phototrekker bag in order to get this leviathan, a 24–70mm f2.8, a D3, a D300 and my laptop on board as carry-on; just suffice to say that at 1.8 kilograms overweight and two centimetres over length I succeeded!

I breezed through Manchester airport en-route for Schipol – (a place to be avoided at ALL costs if you take my advice!) – where I met my two fellow travelling companions, my good friend, Dutch wildlife photographer, Edwin Kats, and a rather youthful-looking Dutch chap by the name of Rene Visser.

Our tickets from Schipol to Trondheim had been booked and paid for in late November 2008 by Ed, so imagine our panic when we arrived at gate 23 to find we were not registered on the flight! After some terse exchanges in Dutch – they certainly LOOKED terse from where I was standing, at any rate – we all got seats allocated, then we were put on a bus and ferried out to some obscure piece of hard-standing upon which sat our 'ride' – a KLM City Hopper – for a 2.5 hour flight – this wasn’t going to be fun, thought I…

And it wasn’t!

Still, we got there in the end, as did, miracle of miracles, our luggage, and we were met by our guide for the next six days, a big smiling Viking by the name of Ole Martin Dahle – the Eagle Man of Norway.

We were to be based in Lauvsnes, a pretty coastal village in Flatanger Kummune in the Nord Trondelag region which is a three-hour drive roughly north from Trondheim. Snow was everywhere and there was more and more of it as the journey progressed – I was cursing to myself about not bringing my D2Xs and 14–24mm – this place is a landscaper's 'Valhalla' for sure.

Towering pillars of blue ice cascading from ancient, igneous and metamorphic rock formations that disappear into the clouds – simply stunning, a true visual feast that yours truly never photographed once – what am I like!!

But it was eagles I had come here to photograph…at least that’s what I’m telling myself!

After arriving in Lauvsnes, spending nearly 1000NKr on food and settling in to the wonderful accommodation that Ole Martin provides, we were briefed by him on what to expect the following day in the eagle hide up in the mountains at Smalielva, around 16kms to the south. We needed to be in the hide and totally set up for the day at least 30 minutes before the very first glimmer of daylight appeared, otherwise we would be spotted by numerous pairs of Accipiter eyes, so Ole arranged to pick us up at 5.30am the following morning.

The snow ploughs work constantly on the roads in this area but they leave more packed snow behind than it would take to bring the UK crashing to its knees in half an hour! But all vehicles in Norway seem to manage these conditions as if they didn’t exist – it does give the firsttime visitor palpitations as the driver barrels the VW minibus into a blind left-hander at 40kph – especially in the pitch darkness! Indeed, the only thing that appears to instil a noticeable degree of driver caution is the sudden appearance of snowy moose tracks in the middle of the road!

Anyway, after a short walk up a hill (or in my case life-threatening scramble – 4 feet of snow and little legs don’t mix well) the three of us were ensconced in the eagle hide by around 6.20am; with Ole saying he’d be back at 4.30pm we settled in for a ten-hour stint in the hide.

The temperature inside the hide when we began was around -8°C and you have to be very still and quiet, so plenty of warm layers, hushed whispers of conversation and slow careful movement of equipment are the order of the day. The camera ports all have small observation ports at the side which will soon steam up with condensation – the best way of coping with this is to be somewhat disgusting and spit on the inside of the glass, rather like divers do to their face masks – do this in the dark and it works a treat, the effect lasts all day, and you stand much less chance of being spotted by an eagle than if you are wiping the window with loo-roll every five minutes.

Speaking of the loo…! A portable one is in the entrance to the hide but this separate ‘room’ is not as well insulated as the main part of the hide and is a LOT colder – okay for ‘us chaps’ even in the coldest of conditions, but I can’t help but think the ladies might find the process a little more…well…shall we say 'challenging

When you are sitting in this wooden box surrounded by the mysterious Nordic semi-darkness and filled with anticipation, that first eagle call certainly grabs your attention I can tell you. If you haven’t had a heartattack the next thing you may hear is the slow 'whooshing' of an eagle's wings as it slowly quarters the airspace over the hide just feet above the roof – crikey it’s exciting ‘stuff’!

And then 'The Business' – a monstrous female golden eagle drops onto the small knoll less than 40 feet in front of you – heart stopping stuff!

You have to fight the temptation to unleash the D3 – machine-gunning this lady will just result in her vacating the area at a great rate of knots.

Just observing her for a moment through a 600mm focal length you are aware that this is the most powerful bird in the northern hemisphere at least with the ability to kill a reindeer should the fancy take her.

She plays with the road-kill fox which has been laid out in the snow for the eagles to feed on but then she spots a white ptarmigan bait laid on a fallen pine log to her left – with one bound of her massive legs she’s on it and begins to pluck it with a surprise amount of delicacy and finesse – now she’s pre-occupied the D3 can be given some slack and a few frames taken just to see if she notices the noise.

Once an eagle is settled on the food items, they are very tolerant of the camera noise and a switch to your fastest frame rate is a really good idea. Especially in falling snow or even a slight breeze the nictitating membrane is constantly wiping across the bird's eyes – in other words they blink a lot – if you sit there in single-frame mode most likely you will have some very good shots ruined by this, so it pays to shoot fast and shoot a lot.

Seeing as the snow was copious on the ground subject brightness ranges can be problematic, especially when the sun shines – but switching the D3 to 14-bit RAW stood me in very good stead, delivering me nearly 10,000 images without a single blown highlight to speak of.

With so much light about, all AF functions worked superbly on both our Canons and Nikons. However, the minute the snow starts to fall manual focus is the only option as the snow flakes are well illuminated and the size of dinner plates, so they easily lead both Nikon and Canon AF systems astray.

My only disappointment, other than having to leave on 28 February, was that the big, male golden eagle didn’t appear at all that week – speculation is that something may have happened to him. Though we did get a few visits from a younger one, he was very aware that he was in another eagle's territory, was very nervous, and only turned up in periods of reduced visibility and then just for a few brief seconds; most likely in fear for his life, as if the female had caught hold of him she would most likely kill him.

But for me the ‘stars of the show’ were the white-tailed sea eagles, and the male bird especially as he has a bit of a ‘goofy’ way about him and just reminds me of 'Big Bird' from Sesame Street.

By way of a break midweek, Ole Martin arranged a trip to Namsskogan wildlife park so that we could photograph arctic fox and European lynx – actually getting inside the enclosures enabled us to obtain some great images; getting this close to a large female Lynx, especially when it’s her coming to you, if quite an experience – she’s one very big pussy-cat!

Sadly the park director wouldn’t let me in to the wolf enclosure – even the offer of a total waiver that if I was killed I wouldn’t sue didn’t bring forth the desired response!

But with the arctic fox and lynx images I got I was very happy with the day nonetheless.

The last two days of the trip were spent back in the eagle hide in an attempt to get a good image or two of a male golden eagle.

On the last day of photography, Friday, the temperature inside the hide was a balmy -12 Celsius and -17 Celsius in the loo – that’s the only time in my entire life that I’ve seen cigarette smoke fall to the floor!

I never did get the shots of a male golden eagle; but instead got the best shots of 'Big Bird' and his lady from the entire trip together with some very nice ravens and hooded crows.

Was it worth the effort and cost – absolutely!

All things being equal I plan to return in the early autumn to photograph the white-tailed eagles catching fish in flat-calm glassysurfaced fjords; surrounded by those awesomely dark and mysterious geological monoliths that seem to stand in timeless honour to the Nordic Gods.

Utrolig!

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