Home   About me   Contact me   Shot of the Month  Latest Trips   Galleries    Buy a Picture   Links

Many of you will have heard of Bence Mate, the well known young Hungarian wildlife photographer who has been so successful in the annual BBC Wildlife Photographer competition.  Bence now also runs wildlife photographic trips from his base at Pusztaszer in Hungary, about a two hour drive south-east of Budapest.  The Pusztaszer Protected Landscape located on the right bank of the Tisza River is one of the most protected areas in Hungary and consists of a series of lakes, wetlands and forests.  Even during the car drive to Bence's renovated farm house it was obvious that this unspoilt and traditionally-farmed landscape contained a wealth of bird species. It is tragedy to think parts of the UK were once like this.  Probably the easiest and cheapest way to travel to Budapest is with Easy Jet from Luton Airport with a flight time of just over two hours. 

Bence Mate with his famous Lada.

Tower Hide for a variety of tree-top birds

However, nothing could have prepared me for the quite extraordinary and remarkable next seven days of photography.  What I mean here, is that, in addition Bence's obvious photographic skills, for someone aged just 22 he has renovated a farmhouse, built an astonishing tower hide and a further selection of quite remarkable hides throughout the area.  Bence's trademark is his woodland hides that allow you to photograph the birds at their level whilst they are drinking or bathing.  However, he has a number of other hides in quite different habitat allowing a range of other images.  Typically, you spend 5 hours in one of his hides in the morning, followed by break and lunch, and then a further 5 hours at a different hide in the afternoon/evening.  The choice of hide is up to you.

Most mornings we used a hide to photograph a pair of Rollers which were about to nest in a nesting box on the side of a telegraph pole.  To keep disturbance to a minimum, Bence insisted we were installed by 4am prior to the birds waking up!!.  With no other perches near the box, the birds  constantly used a perch placed about 5m from the nesting box or landed on the hide.  At this stage, I should inform you that at all of Bence's hides you are shooting through glass or to be more precise a one-way mirror.  Although this does not appear to effect overall image quality, it does reduce light by about 1.5 - 2.0 stops.  Bence felt that this was required to reduce disturbance to the wildlife.  Consequently, high ISO's (400 - 800 - 1600) were often the order of the day but with very effective noise reduction software available these days it was not a problem.

HIDE NEAR ROLLER NEST BOX ON TELEGRAPH POLE

BEE-EATER HIDE IN FOREGROUND

Adjacent to his renovated farmhouse, is his tower hide which allowed photography of Kestrels, Cuckoo, Golden Oriole and Bee-Eaters at tree-top level.  This hide tended to be better placed for the evening light.  Also in this area, several trenches has been dug in order to attract Bee-eaters and whilst we were there many images were obtained from a hide of Bee-eaters flying, landing on perches, displaying and even mating.

In the afternoon/evening we usually used one of bence's woodland hides that overlooked drinking/bathing pools.  These were amazing constructions which allowed us to photograph the birds at their level.  Bence had even sunk water wells close to his pools from which he pumped the water to maintain water levels.  Equally amazing, he had constructed an underground system of wire from the hide to large mirrors attached to nearby trees. By pulling on these wires in the hide you could the angle of lighting to back-light the subjects!!!!!

What I particularly liked about these pools is that you never knew what would appear next,  I managed to photograph, for example, Red Fox, Roe Deer, Goshawk, Hawfinch, Nightingale,  Blackbird, Yellowhammer, woodpeckers, Red Squirrel, Starling, tits and finches.

It was so good that we are returning in a couple of months and have even booked for 2009.  For more information visit www.matebence.hu

A WOODLAND HIDE AT A DRINKING POOL

Images from trip can be seen under GALLERIES