Persistence and Luck in Wildlife Photography

If I were to give some advice to a beginner wildlife photographer, I would certainly emphasize that persistence is key to taking a good picture. I’m sure I have already mentioned this multiple times on this blog. Yet, in recent years, I haven’t been a very active photographer - because… well, life, I guess. Moving to a new place, work and taking care of our new dog have taken up most of my attention. Naturally, my photography has suffered as a result - at least in terms of volume. And so has updating this website.

I don’t know how many times I’ve taken a picture of a raptor flying somewhere over the horizon, far, far away. Those images are nothing worth showing to the world - mostly silhouettes, blurry, lacking detail… It was frustrating since photographing birds of prey had been on my to-do list ever since I started shooting wildlife.

That’s why this little set is even more precious to me than I would have expected. It was taken during a lovely stroll with my wife and our friends in the vicinity of Velký Tisí pond back in April of 2023. I even hesitated to bring my camera along, thinking I would just be carrying its weight around with nothing to show for it.

So it took me completely by surprise that I was able to bring back the best pictures of raptors in the wild that I’ve taken so far. Even more so because I took those pictures in just about ten minutes from a single spot! A moment later, I found out that I was near the nest of a pair of beautiful western marsh harriers. Maybe they were just watching me to make sure I wasn’t a threat to their nest.

And almost at the same time, this red kite tagged along… I was ecstatic and couldn’t believe my eyes.

So, what was my advice to beginner wildlife photographers? Well, persistence is important. Skill is great. But luck… luck can be everything. Just make sure to bring your camera along!