Norway '24

A friend and very talented photographer Adam Juckes decided to start organising tours and this was his first effort. The possibility of seeing Golden Eagles and Goshawks in the snow was way too much to pass up so I jumped at the chance.

There was quite a bit of anxiety about actually getting to Norway as there were terrible storms and many cancellations. The anxiety was well founded with our flight being brought forward 6 hours...and only finding out when we woke up...3 hours before the rescheduled flight was due to take off. It was an exciting rush to the airport but it all worked out in the end.

There are two hides, Forest - targeting Goshawk and Field - targeting Golden Eagle. For the first couple of days we were going to be in the Field Hide. Despite it's name, it's also in the forest with he hide faces a small clearing.

It's a long and brutal session, you are in an hour before dawn and there until an hour after. In January that means 6am-6pm. The Eagles could arrive at any time, so you have to keep your concentration up at all times too. On the first day an Eagle arrived at just after 1pm and it was quite the shock too. After 7 hours of waiting somehow we all missed it's arrival. It's hard to overstate how much presence they have close up. It marched around a bit before flying off. We thought that was it but fortunately it returned for another march around before departing the final time.

The next day was longer and tougher, searing bright sunlight but no eagles. It was not our day.

The final days session was in the forest hide which has a much more relaxed starting time. There's also something of a climb to get to it, but that all adds to the adventure. It was much less tense too, we could enjoy blasting away at all the small woodland birds like Crested Tit, Bullfinch and the rest. The small birds would frequently flush and scatter - suggesting the Goshawk was around. And true to form it arrived out of nowhere. It fed a while, and for reasons best known to itself, ate a pigeons foot whole.

The trip was a massive success and Adam totally nailed it. He's gone and turned this into a proper business now, so if you want to go on this tour, you can find it here. I also wrote a trip report for their blog.