Bearded Vulture Photography ~ Photo-logistics Hide ~ 10th Aug '25

Bearded Vulture Photography 

Having spent 2 mornings in Belchite near Zaragoza, Spain photographing Sandgrouse it was then a 3 hour drive to Salsona where I stayed for the night of the 9th at Hotel Salsona Centre.

The morning of the 10th August and my meeting point was Cap Del Pla only a 15 minute drive from the hotel, from here I was taken to the hides roughly 10 minutes, down the mountain side and back up to a plateau which overlooks the valley to the opposite mountain which gave a nice photographic backdrop.

These hides are from Photo-Logistics ...

I set myself up in the hide closest to car this one seemed to give better backgrounds, both were side-lite ..

This hide has 3 Benro Gimbal heads, Office chairs, power banks, fans and a toilet, the whole hide complete with astroturf under foot. Whilst I was setting up the guide was baiting the plateau area, I sat back and watched .. 

Before He had even got back to his car roughly 80 Griffon Vultures came in, it was absolute carnage to get to the food, so much going on at one time, mass fighting, birds landing on top of other birds and still more vultures were coming in, great to watch but not a chance to get an isolated photo. 

The feeding mayhem literally lasted 30 seconds probably less, then it was more fighting before nearly all the Griffons went to sleep !! A couple of Egyptian Vulture kept coming in and one Bearded tried but was soon seen off by the Griffon Vultures.

It took about an hour before the Griffon started to disperse and as the numbers dropped away with fewer birds meant more space to get an isolated shot ...

And it wasn't long before the first Bearded Vulture came in .. 

The magnificent Lammergeier ...

 The name Lammergeier is a combination of two German words:

Lamm, the German word for "lamb"

Geier, the German word for "Vulture"

The name Lamb Vulture is based off the mistaken belief that the bird preyed on lambs ..

While Lammergeier is the German name, the other bird's names come from Latin & Greek ..

Ossifrage ... An old English name meaning "bone-breaker" referring to the habit of dropping bones from height to break them allowing access to the marrow ..

Gypaetus ... Ancient Greek, combining gup "vulture" and aetos "eagle"

barbatus ... Is Latin for "bearded"

Scientific name .... Gypaetus barbatus

I had from 07:30 till 15:00 in the hide and for my session photography didn't start till 09:00 once the numbers had dropped and was over 13:00 the last two hours with no birds in front of the hide ..

If you book for this hide the two most important things to have .!

Plenty of water ..

Zoom Lens ..

If you can cover 200mm to 800mm in focal length then all images should be possible ..

I've got the 150-400 which meant with the 4/3 body I had 300mm as my short end and on a few occasions wing clipped some good images unfortunately.

As the Gimbal Heads are provided you could shoot multiple lenses like 500/4 plus 1.4 on the gimbal and say a 200 handheld for flight shots if you don't have a zoom lens.

Over the time when I had birds to aim at the Bearded Vultures probably only gave 5 or 6 attempts especially at flight shots with a bit more time available when on the ground but once they had a bone in the bill they generally flew off ..

The session is normally till 16:00 but I had a flight to get straight from the hide so arranged a 15:00 to allow me the 2 hour drive to Barcelona Airport ..

Considering the amount of Griffon Vultures I had far fewer images just due to the sheer number of birds and not being able to get a clear shot of an isolated bird ..

I made the airport with time to spare, had a couple of beers and booked another two days for October in the hide for Owls ..

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