Apologies for the lack of recent posts - I have quite a reasonable excuse. During late January, I was preparing for a week long trip to the Hortobagy Hungary to photograph White-tailed Eagles.

The trip was organised by Shetland Wildlife, a company I have travelled with on several occasions in the past. So at 06.15, on Saturday 7th February, I met up with the other members of the group at London Heathrow and was surprised to see that I had already travelled with three of them.

An uneventful flight to Budapest, a 21/2 hour drive to Hotel Balmaz at Balmazujvaros, left us all rather tired and ready for bed. After a reasonable dinner, the group was split into 4 groups of two for the rest of the trip, and we were to be picked up at 05.00hrs the next morning to spend 11 hours in Eagle Hide 2. hublot replica We were under strict instructions not to leave the hide for any reason - breakfast and lunch (of sorts) were provided by the hotel to eat in the hide and basic toilet facilities were in situ.

The weather was forecast to be sunny and cold - well it was cold but the hide had a gas heater to maintain a reasonable temperature. It was anything but sunny - in fact I was rarely able to get below ISO1250 all day. I decided to use the Canon 5DMK3 on the 500 lens rather than the 7DMK2 - the birds were too close for a cropped sensor and the 5DMK3 was a better camera at the higher ISO anyway.

After a lonely Buzzard in the half-light, the next to drop in was a large flock of Hooded Crows. Usually there were too many to photograph in isolation except for the odd occassion. Flight or perched shots were just not viable in the grey cloud so it was limited to ground shots.

The a large flock of Caspian Gulls wheeled around, checking things out, finally landing all omega replica watches  together - patience required to get decent shots of these with so many around.

A Parliament of Rooks called in and, although not really on the photography menu, were entertaining with their squabbling

Then the Eagles started to come in. At one time we counted 23 outside the hide - amazing. Quite frankly I have so many decent images to sort out that I have not had the time to complete even day 1. Here are three tasters.

More news when I can manage it as I returned from the trip with a really heavy coughing virus that has kept me indoors since returning so I am limited with the amount of time I can spend.