Peter's Blog

A spring trip to La Sauge, Lake Neuchatel, Switzerland.
All images were created using the Canon 600mm + 2TC, attached to a 5D4.

Hunting for the Bearded Vulture, I travelled with my good friend Roland Fischer to the Pyrenees. The location is totally remote and in the wild Pyrenees. A feeding ground has been setup to help the different species of vulture through the winter: Monks Vulture, Griffon Vulture and Bearded Vulture. All three visit the feeding site, but the Bearded Vulture the most frequent. In Spanish, they are called the ‘quebrantahuesos’, the bird that crushes bones. The only language that named this species right. Lammergeier, Lammergier all suggests that this bird kills sheep. It could not be farther from the truth. Being a 100% scavenger, this bird lack the predation skills. Almost brought to the brink of extinction, farmers did everything to annihilate this amazing creature. Now there is a stable and protected population of around 300 birds, growing by 1% each year.

Find all images here: 2017 Pyrenees

Last weekend I was kindly invited to join Arthur Morris’s UK Puffins & Gannets Photography trip. It was a short weekend, just 3 days. But it was packed with lots of sea bird action. The most sought after bird was of course the Puffin, an almost clownesk bird, but only by looks. These burrowing nesting birds are tough and fly like bullets. In Scotland the Puffin is nicknamed ‘Tammie Norrie’.

Puffin in flight, with Sand Eels

Puffin portrait

We needed to sail to the Farne Islands in order to get close to them. This group of islands are a seabird heaven: Razorbills, Guillimots, Kittywakes, Fulmars, Arctic Terns and Puffins bread here. Puffins are estimated to inhabit the islands with app. 20.000 breading pairs.

Arctic Tern

Fulmar

Kittywake

Close to our sleeping quarters was Bamburgh Castle. I photographed the castle at around 23:30, when the castle was flood-lit by the lights in the lawns around the castle. The purple sky of the undergoing sun provided a special color cocktail.

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More images of this trip can be found here: 2015 Seahouses.