Danube Delta

    The first time I visited the Danube Delta was in the summer of 2019. I immediately fell in love with it and have visited every summer since then - not even the Covid pandemic stopped me! I hope to continue doing so for many years to come. 

    Nothing compares to the tranquility of dusk while gently floating in a boat, with the water reflecting the last rays of the sinking, crimson sun and the serene, darkening sky slowly swallowing you. There, surrounded by hundreds of birds, you breathlessly witness day creatures getting their last meal and preparing for sleep, while the night division of birds takes over the eternal struggle for survival, perpetually guarding this aquatic ecosystem.

    With over 370 bird species, the Danube Delta is heaven for anyone passionate about photographing them. I feel that time flies every time I'm in a boat aiming for the next best shot, and I always feel I'll miss this place's magic the moment I leave.

    The Danube Delta is just a couple of hours' drive from the Black Sea coast, where we spend a week or so every year. About two-thirds of the delta is in Romania, the rest is in Ukraine. One can choose from many places to set camp, but we settled on a village called Murighiol because it is close to several canals and lakes and also because finding a good boater was easier in that region. 

    If you plan to photograph birds in the delta, I can't stress enough the importance of picking the right boat and guide. A couple of times we went out with locals who drove too fast, failed to stop in the right places, or only went to tourist-heavy locations. Any of these issues made it impossible to get a quality shot. Now, after all these years, we have selected a few excellent boaters, who not only take us to more secluded canals but also actively participate in the hunt for great shots. I'm often impressed by their sharp eyes, noticing tiny birds in flight, hidden in the reeds, or perched on a tree branch. 

    Another crucial aspect is the time of day you go shooting. Normally, we have two sessions per day: one very early, before the sun rose—think 5 a.m.—and the other late in the evening, a couple of hours before sunset, so the trip back to the pier occurs in near pitch darkness. Any other time during the day is kind of pointless since birds remain mostly hidden in the shade, consequently, you will see more speedboats with tourists than wildlife. 

    I have many unique memories of this place. Besides the award-winning shot of a heron catching a fish, I captured many amazing photos of the elusive king fisher—one of the fastest and hardest birds to photograph here—as well as pelicans, cormorants, egrets, gray,  purple, and night herons, red-necked grebes, different hawk and falcon species, colorful European rollers, rainbow bee-eaters, glossy ibises, and many more that I won't have space to include here. Once I got within a couple of meters of a huge white-tailed eagle resting on a branch right on the shore, and I managed to photograph it. This is an enormous bird, slightly bigger than the

bald eagle, and it's quite rare to see even in flight, let alone still. Another time, I saw a purple heron flying right in front of the sun, the light passing through its plumage turning it into something as close to the mythical Phoenix bird as one can get. One evening I saw a squadron of several hundred pelicans preparing for sleep on a lake, a never-ending still patch of white and orange.

    Some of these birds fly over from Africa in the spring for the summer. I've heard that one can even spot flamingos, but I was never so lucky. However, we learned that the Rhône Delta (Camargue) in France has one of the highest concentrations of flamingos in Europe. Since we often go to France anyway, we drove there once in 2023, and I got my revenge! Even though the flamingos here are not from the Danube Delta, I couldn't resist including them in this article.

    As for the gear for shooting birds, in the past I used my Sigma (150-600mm) lens with the Canon EOS RP. That setup was phenomenal, however it just couldn't give me the quality of the Sony 200-600mm G lens paired with the Sony A7R3 camera; the latter being vastly versatile for multiple types of photography which I enjoy, including wildlife, macro, landscape, and city. The 200-600mm is also a great lens, providing me with a wide range of zoom for every occasion.