TomKal foto

I had a chance and pleasure to photograph white-tailed sea eagles thanks to using Marcin’s hide ( link ). Without such a place taking such pictures in such a quantity would be impossible. The involvement in case of this kind of photography is naturally different, as from dawn to dusk you have to sit in one place in Spartan conditions, to see this largest bird of prey in our country. The white-tailed sea eagle’s wingspan reaches 2.4 meters, its body length is up to around one meter, and its weight up to 6 kg (females), males are lighter, and they weigh up to 4.5 kg. I assure you that it is worth the sacrifice, as you will neither have such views nor perform pictures like this in any zoological garden or during a walk with your camera. Remember that white-tailed eagles have a many times better eye sight than we do and they will probably notice us before we can see them. And if this is true, they are likely to fly away before you attempt to photograph them from a huge distance. Observing the behavior of these predators all day long is something impossible to describe. Therefore, I invite you to my photo gallery, and those who are more determined – to Marcin’s hide. Determined, because you have to spend some time in „field” conditions, without a possibility to leave the hide: from one hour before the dawn till one hour after the dusk, which might make over a dozen hours. But it’s probably worth it…
Last minute news-10/2013
I have uploaded a few photos of the white-tailed eagle in view of the extraordinary situation and the background on which I photographed the bird (photos of a white-tailed eagle on a spruce).  While I was waiting for red deer I could see some carcass lying on the ground, to the right of the pulpit. The whole neighborhood was interested in it. Ravens, a northern goshawk, common buzzards and the white-tailed eagle. The bird’s attention was apparently drawn by a huge number of ravens that had been feasting since the early morning. The ravens kept very close to the white-tailed eagle, trying, from time to time, to give it a “nudge”. I wish I had had camouflage, as I think, the white-tailed eagle’s having a meal in the company of ravens, in the morning, would have been a nice subject for a few pictures. The white-tailed eagle and the northern goshawk didn’t accept our presence. Nevertheless I couldn’t help uploading the photo on the lush spruce green, especially that they are the first pictures in the gallery which were taken outside a hide.
Last minute news-12/2013
There are places where, if only time permits, I always want to come back. Marcin’s shelter ( link ) is undoubtedly such a place. There you can actually relax and not think about the hardships of everyday life, there is no time for it. You constantly have to keep your eyes and ears open widely, as something interesting can happen at any moment. It never happened to leave the lookout without taking at least a few interesting photos. Or roe deer pass along the edge of the meadow, or fox hunting for its prey may be watched, northern harrier hunting in the distance can get closer at any time, not to mention sea eagles, which appear virtually always. This time, the most interesting observation and fortunately successful picture turned out to be the photo of the sea eagle and the pheasant. I watched attentively a flock of pheasants consisting of a few cocks and hens that were appearing every now and then. It would not be anything unusual in this situation, but at a short distance, in the meadow, sat a few sea eagles that could attack them at any time. Additionally one of the pheasants was extremely brave, or wanted to leave this world held in an embrace of white-tailed sea eagle’s claws. The pheasant walked around the sea eagles and the distance between them shortened every hour. Eagles did not care, but it did not mean that the pheasant was not watched. Pheasants were returning from time to time but most important was that the "bravest" or "crazy" cock pheasant came back again. It was going around the eagles, while the other kept a safe distance. Suddenly, probably with the fourth approach, the distance between the cock pheasant and the young white-tailed sea eagle shortened so much that the eagle decided to take the risk of rapid attack. Fortunately, after a few hours of watching these scenes I did not give up and waited until it was time to attack, and attempted to take photos. As usual, everything took a few seconds and the lighting conditions left much to be desired. With ISO 1250 and diaphragm 5, time settings increased from the morning and remained at 400-600, and for several minutes during the day arouse to 1/1000s. So it was not a comfortable situation for dynamic scenes. All my hope in serial shots. Only one attempt and I managed to take a few pictures framed correctly. In some of them, unfortunately, the objects escaped out of the frame and they are incomplete. However, there are some amazing shots of the attack and in my opinion their quality is acceptable. There are so many interesting photos taken during this outdoor session, despite bad weather, that I decided to remodel the eagle’s gallery and expose in the gallery No. 1 the white-tailed eagle with its 24 completely new pictures. Other pictures can be found at the end of the eagle’s gallery, that is in the gallery No. 6. Photos will be arranged so until the white-tailed eagle is  in the news announced on the site. Then, I hope, there will be new pictures which change the current order. It is a pity that during this open-air session  I failed to record the eagle’s voice. Sounds young eagles give out cannot be even compared with the beautiful voice of adult ones. I still remember the sound of white-tailed eagle which came out of nowhere while shooting last year in the foggy morning. After landing it announced its arrival having raised its head up and slightly tilted it backward giving out this wonderful sound characteristic for eagles. All this I watched at that time from about 10 meters, so such recording would be of excellent quality. Well, I have to try to make the gallery complete, that is with the sound of this bird recorded on my own. Photographing of sea eagles was a good opportunity for me to take some good photos of jay, harrier, magpie, hooded crow, buzzard, which also complement the existing galleries of the species. For now I invite you to the white-tailed sea eagle’s gallery...
Last minute news – Turkey 09/2014
And again we have another reconstruction of the gallery on my website. But I could not help putting photos of the white-tailed eagle with the eastern imperial eagle  in the same frame. White-tailed eagles, due to the fact that I already have a lot of interesting pictures of this bird, were at the end of my list of priorities while in lookouts in Turkey. But otherwise how could it be, since in front of the lens appear vulture, cinereous vultures, griffon vultures, eastern imperial eagle, or long-legged buzzard. Therefore, only when there was nothing interesting with those species, as yet exotic for me, I was interested in photographing the white-tailed eagles. They most often appeared in the morning and then you could not watch them till the end of the day. As well the young as adults were coming there. White-tailed eagles were distinguished by their beautiful sound, they always gave after arrival. It is a pity that the other species were practically silent. However, there were taken so many dynamic photos, which I like the best, that the gallery had to be reconstructed, and the number of images in it were reduced finally. I do not change records in the information to keep a diary-like form, memories of photographic expeditions, however, some of them may become outdated. Well, let us leave well enough alone, and an overloaded gallery would be difficult to go through.
Last minute news 06/2015
Having such a rich white-tailed eagle portfolio, it is hard to expect any significant changes in the gallery. I’ve uploaded a few pictures, which for the time being are presented at the end of the gallery. These photos were taken on Norwegian Fjords. The ambience of these photographs is radically different than the previous ones, and therefore the pictures find their place in my gallery. White-tailed eagles, which live among the rocks, build their nests on them, far away from trees, which is a rather unusual view, at least for me. I saw it only in Island before.  Unfortunately I missed the most intriguing shot of the white-tailed eagle… Taking photographs during a Norwegian Fjord cruise suddenly I heard an announcement that there would be an attempt to feed eagles. I was prepared with my zoom lens to take photos. I just did not expect that the birds are so accustomed to this form of catching prey that they would literally fly over towards the hand of the man throwing fish from the boat. I stood 2-3 meters away from a zooming white-tailed eagle, which caught a fish in no time  and flew away to a ledge. In order to capture such an event from such a distance a wide-angle lens would be more appropriate than a telephoto lens. People standing nearby, who had good reflexes, took interesting pictures with their compact cameras. Well, being so close to such an unusual situation and fail to take a photo – it does not fill you with joy.  The occurrence of the white-tailed eagle at such a small distance from a group of people on the boat made a huge impression on us. The bird was so close that one could literally hear the rustle of his wings. To commemorate that encounter I have uploaded some pictures of two adult eagles on a rock, which I took without any difficulties.
Last minute news 11/2016
While I was waiting for a golden eagle I saw white-tailed eagles appearing every now and again. No new spectacular pictures were taken but on the occasion of the opening the new version of my photogallery, the display was reconstructed.
Last minute news - 02/2017
Waiting for the golden eagle to appear I was able to take some interesting pictures of white-tailed eagle. Despite the fact that its gallery is already rich and eye-catching I could not help adding a few more dynamic images of this beautiful bird.
Last minute news – 11/2017
The content of the gallery was so good that I did not need to correct it. There are still so many other species to photograph that the eagles took secondary importance. Nevertheless, there was a chance to take dynamic pictures of white-tailed eagles. Especially such images show the charm and majesty of our biggest representative of the family of falconiformes. So many pictures were taken that avoiding a complete reconstruction of the gallery was impossible. Another encounter with the white-tailed eagle showed me that, in fact, watching in the lookout point always brings opportunities to observe, to capture something else, even more interesting. The quality of pictures are brought to even higher level and the gallery is so refined that I am considering the introduction of a new quality grade in the rank categories – five-star...
Last minute news-10/2019
I added slideshow of my White-tailed eagle photos on YouTube. Necessarily turn on the sound. Link to it below, welcome:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Krej-mMTcI&t=4s

Last minute news-11/2020
After three years, there was an opportunity for another meeting with white-tailed eagles. This is my 9th meeting with representatives of this species. I have already written about the fact that there is always so much going on in front of  Marcin's shelter ( link ) that if the light allows it, interesting, new photos will be created. White-tailed eagles are probably such a species of bird that you will never get bored of photographing. It's hard not to admire them. This time there was a harvest defeat. I had a deja vu from the UK while photographing a red kite. Several dozen of white-tailed eagles appeared and it was difficult to find a clean position for a photographic shot. While waiting for the sunrise, my best recording of a white-tailed eagle's voice was made and it replaced the recording so far. Young white-tailed eagles looked quite funny and, like adults, wanted to make white-tailed voices - and here some hoarse, funny sounds, unsuccessful attempts. A pheasant also appeared. I had quiet hopes of a repetition of the shooting of a young white-tailed pheasant's attack from years ago. But not this time. The pheasant kept a considerable distance from the group of white-tailed eagles and the attack did not happen. Nevertheless, another day in the watch room and it was my first such day. I try to build a 24-30 photo gallery, but in the case of a white-tailed eagle, this rule cannot be followed. Out of thousands of photos taken over 10 years, choosing under 200 photos is a big compromise. The gallery has been supplemented with new photos, a new recording of the white-tailed eagle's voice and goes to the news.
Last minute news -05/2021
Photographing white-tailed eagles wasn’t my main goal during this trip,  but they helped a lot in taking dynamic pictures of the Greater Spotted Eagle. Their presence caused the Greater Spotted Eagle to be very active. I managed to take some interesting pictures of both species. It brought the variety to the existing gallery. Well, I never refuse White-tailed Eagles! The gallery is now in news on my website, although it seems to be getting a little overloaded...