TAKE YOUR PIC
ELMAR VENTER
Canon EOS 1Dx Canon 500 mm lens with a 1.4x converter
ELMAR WRITES: I took this photo of a juvenile bearded vulture at the Giant’s Castle vulture hide. I visited the hide for four consecutive days and hoped one of these raptors would come in for a landing.
On the last morning, everything fell into place. I like the symmetry of the bird’s posture.
TOAST SAYS: Four days in a row? That’s dedication! Sometimes you have no choice: You know exactly what kind of photograph you want, you’re in the right place, so you just have to be patient and wait.
The bearded vulture isn’t any old bird of prey – it’s our most endangered, rarest vulture. Some context: There were 285 tries scored during the 2019 Rugby World Cup, just a few less than the number of bearded vultures remaining in the wild. There are only 320 left in South Africa
