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Observing a Splash is an incredible experience. This small bird, as it weighs less than 70 grams, swims very ably in mountain torrents, continually finding larvae of insects in them. Despite being a an ably flyer its wings are more used for swimming and as rowing paddles. As for a relatively rare animal, its population in Poland is estimated for around 1000 couples, it lets itself be photographed quite easily and without masking. Unfortunately, these pictures taken “spontaneously” are the ones taken from the distance of tens of metres, which, even with a full frame and long lense does not give a photo that can fully present this bird's grace. Sitting by the torrent you can sometimes spot a Splash flying by, fast and agile flyer, with its technique resembling a Common Kingfisher. After a quick fly by it returns to jumping from rock to rock and diving. It is interesting that the Splash is a national bird of Norway, despite big diversity and richness of species occuring in this country.
Last minute news – 02/2015
I am always happy to return to shooting some birds such as: the corncrake, the hoopoe or the white-throated dipper. This time I had an opportunity to observe white-throated dippers in the vicinity of Krynica. A patient observer could see that there were actually quite a lot of them, almost always in all the mountain streams. Taking pictures of them it was not a piece of cake, as it was with the observation. A frightened dipper can fly away several hundred meters and thus the photo session is over. I set my small, chair-lookout in the beautiful dipper’s surrounding. There were snow caps, melting ice, numerous stones above the water of the stream with traces of the dippers’ stay, my hidden lookout point "pushed" into the bushes on the shore – everything exactly according to the manual for those who want to photograph these birds from a distance of a few to dozen meters. I spent there three hours or more and nothing happened. Well, not quite nothing, because dippers flew not too far away, but when they were right next to me they flew up a little higher, and after a while again flew just above the water surface. To have some results I had to change the method of photographing. My calm an d quiet approach to the birds ended up taking far better photos. Although, I sometimes had to support my lens of 600 with converter, but the images did not require much cropping. Having already taken some pictures I thought, as usual, of sound recording of the bird. But in the case of white-throated dipper it is extremely difficult, as the noise of the stream may be too loud compared to the bird voice coming from a dozen or perhaps a few dozen meters. This year there were a lot of encounters with white-throated dippers, probably because of the proximity of their occurrence in the area of my accommodation. The dippers were appearing from time to time in a nearby stream 30-40 meters from the hotel where I stayed. I got up before sunrise, I took a tripod, a chair-lookout, a camera and a recording equipment. I sat 2-3 meters from the shore, and about 8 meters from the water fault line of a small stream. I was sitting and waiting - time passed and nothing came of it. I could not even observe any flight. But finally I was lucky. The dipper sat in the middle of the water fault line and began its singing. It never happened to me to be so close to the white-throated dipper so I had dilemmas: a sound, or a photo? I have made my mind: a sound, this time a sound. But in the meantime, when the dipper paused its song I took a few photos. A recording lasting 2 minutes is a satisfactory material for further processing. Bearing in mind the real difficulties in photographing white-throated dipper and the sound background of the stream, I managed to make a super-quality audio record of this cryophilic bather. Many encounters with the dippers let me watch mating courtship of these birds. Male flexing in front of female and loudly singing their mating song. I managed to take a picture, but from a distance, with the converter and in poor lighting conditions. However, I have added them to the gallery, despite their documentary quality. The gallery of the white-throated dipper was radically restructured, with its own sound recording. This is a species for which I have an absolute weakness. Definitely the new edition of the white-throated dipper gallery goes to the news on my website. Welcome...
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