articles/Nature/regaleagles-page1

Regal Eagles - part 1 of 1 2 3 4

by Andy Astbury Published 01/04/2009

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.

• Regal Eagles page 1
  
• Regal Eagles page 2
  
• Regal Eagles page 3
  
• Regal Eagles page 4
  

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