A spring morning photographing griffon vultures
Four hours in a hide above the Douro, one thermos of coffee, and the frame I'd been chasing for two years.
The hide sits on a cliff edge above the Douro, and you have to be inside it before first light — vultures notice a door closing from a kilometre away. So the morning starts at four, with coffee poured in the dark and a lens cap lost somewhere under the car seat.
The birds arrived with the first thermals, two hours later. Griffons don't flap if they can help it; they materialise at eye level, wings locked, close enough to hear the air tearing over the primaries. For two years I'd wanted a frame of one banking against the river far below, and for two years they'd banked the other way.
This time one didn't. One frame, sharp, the Douro a dark ribbon underneath. The other three hundred exposures were the price of admission, and I'd pay it again next week.