Oder Delta

White-tailed Eagles have been at the top of my list for a while. I did get to see them on my trip to Białowieża Forest, the conditions were very challenging with lots of amospheric haze. All but one of the photos were blurry.

Mull is the obvious place in the UK to photograph eagles, and there's a boat that will take you out to them too. The thing is, that boat trip results in the same photo of the same eagle against the same mountain. I've seen it 100's of times. It's a fabulous photo, and one day im absolutely going to go and take it, but I really wanted to find a different photo.

In Northern Poland, the Oder River meets the Baltic Sea. Before it does, it pools into a lagoon by the town of Szczecin. The lagoon is an all you can eat Eagle buffet, full of fowl and fish. During the spring and autumn season, the numbers of migrating shorebirds will approach 250,000. Exhausted by their travels, they'll be a feeble target for such a terrible beast.

Szczecin Lagoon is home to approximately 150 breeding pairs of White-tailed Eagles or Bieliki in Polish. As with many birds of prey they are scavengers as much as hunters. Like gulls, they have learned that fishing boats ditching their bait or bycatch will provide an easy meal.

Enterprising fishermen have noticed this too, and will rent a space in their boats to tourists and local nature lovers alike. Their bane now their bounty, fishers both human and bird benefit from the lagoons larder.