Romania and the Last Frontier - Day 8 and 9: A Grand Finale

I have decided it it time to finally wrap up this trip to Romania in one extended blog post. All the photographs that follow are from day 8 of the trip as the ninth day was fully taken with travelling back home.

Another very early start saw myself and Rene heading back to the Northern Jackal hide for our last attempt on these enigmatic animals. Overcast conditions prevailed above once more but at least is was a white cloud rather than deep grey which increased the availability of light. The carp carcasses were staked out and once again within a short time a jackal head nervously appeared out of the longer grass and scrub area to the left of the hide. We had three jackals appear that morning which seemed to be a an adult male, a female and a sub-adult. These jackals are quite nervous animals and the large male seemed fairly possessive over the carp breakfast. I guess in total we had the jackals in front of us on and off for seemed to be around 20 - 30 minutes in total allowing plenty of time to get some more photos to add to those taken in the preceding days.

The jackals sloped back off into the scrub. Again the action was over relatively quickly and so we still had plenty of the morning session available. Once we were certain the jackals had completely left the area we called Luca who came and collected us. We had decided we would spend the rest of the morning in a reed clad  hide located closer to the hotel which overlooked a small reed lined pond with a scattering of lilies across its surface. The main target birds for this pond were Kingfisher and Pygmy Cormorant.

We were not sat there very long before we heard the distinctive high pitch call of the Kingfisher and a male bird came speeding in towards the hide and landed on a perch in the water in front of us.

The bird departed and flew across to a post in the middle of the pond where it dived a couple of time before returning in front of us and disappearing once more.

Whilst waiting for it to hopefully reappear there were some other birds in front of us. A Squacco Heron stalking through the reedbeds on the far bank and a pair of Ferruginous Duck. I concentrated my efforts on the ducks having taken so many heron photos in the previous days. The drake was preening and as with virtually all birds this was followed by the obligatory wing flap to shake down the feathers.

Another shrill call announced the return of the Kingfisher, a female this time.

At this point Rene and I part ways with him deciding to stay in the hide to see what else may arrive whilst I decided to walk about 20m away to where a pop-up hide had been placed next to a sandy depression in the bank for European Bee-eater. If you look carefully in the photograph below you can just see one of the birds perched in the tree behind.

Just for your interest, this was the camera few from the hide. Always a pleasure to have these colourful birds in the camera viewfinder.

There were no nest holes in the bank and at first it did not look very promising but there were plenty of birds gliding around nearby and it was not long before I had a pair perched up in front of me. Having taken a few portrait photographs of these technicolour birds that look like they have flown through a wet rainbow, I spent a little time trying for a couple of landing photographs. The birds were just beginning a nest excavation in the bank as you can see by the small depression in front of this bird.

The birds were being fairly un-cooperative for the landing photos but this partly resulted from the perch being too long giving them to much choice of where to alight.

This last one shows the last few of many flying insects during their short lives.

The sun was getting high now, the light harsh and the air becoming wobbly with the rapid rising temperature outside the hide, so I decided to bring the morning session to an end and head back to the hotel for a coffee.

Over another tasty lunch we all sat down and discussed our plans for the final afternoon / evening session. Rene, Paul and Kevin decided they would go off site with Luca and Zoltan with a drive of around 40 minutes to an area with Collared Pratincole. I decided I would stay and take out one of the electric buggies and see what I could find to photograph around Ultima Frontiera.

Mid-afternoon accompanied by the whir of an electric motor I headed down to the south end of the site to start my afternoon in a hide for that had been set up for Marsh Harrier.

My transport for the afternoon

The hide was a strange one! A tiny box raised up on long supports overlooking a vast area of reeds with an old tree branch a short distance in front. This was not a hide for the claustrophobic as it was so small I had to leave my bag outside at the foot of the entry ladder. Once settle in it was obvious flight photos were going to be nearly difficult as the slight breeze was not in an ideal direction and there was a fair amount of heat and water vapour haze rising up off the reeds. I had seen a couple of harriers at distance and continued to wait cramped into the box. A male bird suddenly appeared from nowhere and settled on the perch.

This was the first time I had seen a Marsh Harrier that was not in flight and they are such an attractive bird of prey.

The male stayed a short while  but did not really do much beyond the above photo except rearrange a couple of feathers before taking flight once more. I decided under the conditions I was not really going to get much more out of the hide and had a growing need to stretch my legs. Under some better conditions the potential for this hide to provide some amazing harrier photographs would be very good.

What to try next? I remembered there was a hide nearer the hotel set amongst a series of old square fish ponds where the previous day Luca had managed a nice photograph of a Purple Heron and Rene and Paul had seen some Musk Rat. I convinced myself it was worth checking. This hide was not ideal sited as it was set up quite high on the bank and therefore not providing the ideal viewpoint of anything in front of it. It was very quiet except for a family of Mute swans including a very aggressive male. My hopes were raised when an adult purple heron flew in behind some reeds to the left but this was soon flushed by a herd of free ranging cattle. After staying in the hide a while I decided my efforts would be better directed elsewhere and remembered the Penduline Tit nest that was just around the corner that Zoltan had showed me the previous day.

Getting photographs of this tiny 'masked' bird was a trial of patience as it zipped around between nest, low bushes and reeds but eventually I managed to get some photographs I was happy with.

The evening was starting to draw in now so I decided I would go off on one big final circuit and just see what I could find along the way.

The first photo opportunity was with a beautifully coloured Red-backed Shrike which was glowing in the late sun. The bird was quite difficult to photograph as it was one of those that just wanted to stay a little too distant in front of me, as it flipped between low bushes, and as I tried to creep up on it in the electric buggy. Eventually it paused on top of a bush for a moment allowing me to get close and a couple of shots. Such a shame these birds have been lost from the UK.

Moving along one of the southern tracks, a European Roller was perched in a low tree. I expected it to peel away in flight and a blur of blue as I approached but it just sat there in apparent curiosity. I really like these birds, which are about the size of a jackdaw, but they do spend long periods sitting around doing not very much.

After a while the curiosity seemed to get the better of the bird and it flew down to a bush right next to me. By this time I was standing at the back of the buggy which I was trying to use as some cover. Such a pleasure to be so close to one of these birds. It just sat there cocking its head to the sides and inspecting me before another flew by which it joined.

I was heading back to the hotel now as the light was dropping fast. On the final approach a Hoopoe  made me stop briefly and I got a nice full sequence of photographs as it dispatched another mole cricket excavated from the sandy track below. These were to be my last bird photographs of the trip and a fine way to finish.

If you look back up this post at the variety of photographs taken in a single day it shows was an amazing place Ultima Frontiera can be for the wildlife photographer,

The following morning, it was time to wave goodbye to Danube Delta and make the long journey home. We all decided we would try and squeeze in one more brief Golden Jackal session and we would literally have around 30 minutes in the hide. A heavily overcast sky and a jackal that ran in and ripped the staked carp from the ground in one move meant that the few photographs taken ended up in the computer trash bin. However, it was good, even though very briefly, to see a jackal for one last time before we left.

The journey home was a reverse of the one coming to the Delta with a combination of boat, minibus, two planes and a car before I was putting the keys in the front door 18 hours later. What a superb and memorable trip it had been spent in great company with some truly wonderful and memorable wildlife encounters.

So I would like to express a big thank you to a number of people:

• Rene, Paul and Kevin for their great company. 
• Zoltan and Luca for their tireless efforts.
• Sakertour (website here ) for another brilliantly organised trip
• Skua Nature (website here ) for making the stay at Ultima Frontiera such a pleasure
• The chef at Ultima Frontiera for not serving fish!

and finally.....to the wildlife of the Danube Delta for allowing us to share those precious and intimate moments.

Romania and the Last Frontier - Day 3 p.m: Golden Glow

A good day was about to get a whole lot better! so expect a good number of photographs below. After the midday break which included fishing around in the vat of soup on the dining table trying to avoid the bits of carp, downloading cards and backing up and a quick siesta, we were assembled on the jetty at 3.pm ready for the afternoon session.

First stop for the afternoon was going to be some Kingfishers. We had tried this spot the previous year with no sign of the birds but I think we had missed them due to our later trip. The strong current pushing down this channel made positioning the boat upstream and into the margin difficult. This was especially the case as the boat need to be perpendicular to the flow. After about 15 minutes the boat was in position and this was the scene before us.

On the left side of the image you can just see the vertical clay bank where the Kingfishers were nesting. After about 20 minutes the male appear with a fish and landed on the perch. With nice even light from some thin cloud overhead, and the dark green swirling waters providing a back drop, the colours of these birds appeared incredibly vivid. A flash of brilliance in this watery landscape. The bird flew into the nest before re-emerging a short while later and disappearing downstream in a flash of electric blue accompanied by the characteristic high pitched penetrating call. Apologies for the background on these photos which have suffered greatly  at the hands of jpeg compression but do look great on the originals.

Another 30 minutes or so past and the female appeared, distinguished by the red on the lower bill, also carrying a small fish.

The boat swung round due to the force of the current and needed to be re-positioned. Having photographed both birds on the perch I was thinking what else I could do. Typically the birds were landing, moving along the perch and then launching straight into the bank. I thought I might try a flight photo although this was not an easy proposition from a the moving platform of the boat that was gently rocking and yawing in the strong flow. Also probably not a very sensible idea given the light limitations, as you need to lot of camera shutter speed to freeze these small fast moving birds. I kept one photo from these attempts.

In total we spent a couple of hours at the Kingfisher site before we all agreed it was time to move on. As we traveled through the back channels to our next destination, the thin cloud dispersed and the sinking sun broke through. We came out into a very large lake, which I call 'Ibis lake', as we had managed to photograph some of these birds there the previous year. As the boat glided into the lake, to our left was a large area of floating weed that extended out from the the high reed fringed egde. Dotted across this mass of floating vegetation were numerous Squacco and Night Herons, a Little Egret and a couple of Glossy Ibis. With a lack of clouds in the sky this whole area would become beautifully lit in golden light as the sun dropped away.

I thought for this part I would post the images by species rather than in any chronological order as to be honest the whole session is a bit of a blur of birds and the sound of whirring camera shutters. At one point we had a Glossy Ibis, Night Heron, and Squacco Heron in a line in front of us and I was sequential going down the line up taking images. An amazing experience to have these photogenic species in front of you with the light improving with each passing moment. Of course the whole process was accompanied by the constant background chorus of frogs just to add the vibrant atmosphere.

I will start with the Glossy Ibis. We managed to photograph this bird the previous year in some fairly poor light. To really appreciate the beautiful colours of these birds they need some sun on them and this particular bird was in superb plumage. A wonderful combination of deep rusty red with a green and bronze metallic sheen across the wings that changed hue with the direction of light. The further the sun fell the more the colours sang out. The bird was striding across the vegetation which it was constantly probing with its curved beak and occasionally pausing to snap up an aquatic morsel. A small selection of photographs are below.

Occasionally a Hooded Crow would drop in amongst the feeding birds.These corvids seemingly perfectly happy in the water.

Next species was the Little Egret, a familiar species that has become increasingly common since the early 1990's  throughout the UK. However, what a treat it was to have one in such a great setting and light. The bird was showing the typical hyperactive traits of this species, striding around on top of the vegetation looking for food and generally harassing the diminutive Squacco herons. At one point the fish successfully captured a goby (embarrassingly as a trained fish scientist I am unable to tell you which species as thereare several that inhabit the diverse fish community of the delta).

When not feeding the Egret was making life difficult for the numerous Squacco Herons.

If there was ever a bird ideally suited for photography in golden evening light it has to be the Squacco Heron. The golden tones of their feathers really glow and softens the glare off their bright white wings. A range of activities were photographed including stalking prey, and fluttering across the weed having spotted a prey item at distance and shaking out those long feathers.

To finish off this incredible session, the Night Heron. I started off the session with a couple of flight photos as the birds moved in to their evening feeding area.

Typically these birds stand motionless for long periods before a small movement in the floating plants ahead falls under the stare of those large penetrating red eyes. The birds are then spurred into rapid action.

We were fortunate to witness the whole hunt of a frog from capture, to subduing the large meal to it finally disappearing from sight. A couple of photographs from this event are below.

We pulled up alongside a  Pygmy Cormorant was also glowing in the last of the days sun....

......and finished off the session with a Night Heron in the remainder of the light which was now taking on some pink hues

I felt quite drained after such an intense session and with some beaming photographer on the boat,  it was time to fire up the outboard and head back to the hotel for some catfish and tomatoes stew....oh great. Here is a short video clip of us leaving this area just to give you a feel for the number of birds we had in front of us.


Evening on the Delta from Richard Steel on Vimeo.

This had probably been my favourite session on the Danube Delta to date and one that will remaining in the memory, albeit slightly blurry by it intensity, for a very long time to come. I was already looking forward and wondering what the next day might bring.