The Island of Eagles

After nearly going extinct, Rügen once again boasts a growing population of white-tailed eagles—reportedly around forty breeding pairs. Naturally, capturing one on camera would be a dream come true.

My inquiry to the local bird ranger likely ended up in the spam folder, so I did some research myself. Several locations popped up—always accompanied by the reminder to keep one’s distance and under no circumstances disturb the animals. That goes without saying, of course; it’s a rule that applies anytime, anywhere.

A glance at the map quickly revealed that you can’t get very far on Rügen without a car, especially not into the remote areas. That’s why we rented one for the first week; the beautiful riding stable in Schwarbe would have been nearly impossible to reach by bus alone.

So, the countdown to my eagle-spotting expedition was ticking slowly toward zero, yet all week long I felt too lethargic to actually get moving in the morning. On Thursday, we attended the Störtebeker Festival and took a round-trip ferry ride across the two large *Bodden* (coastal lagoons). And, of course, an eagle appeared not far from the boat and made a kill—while I was there without my camera.

So today, I gave myself a kick in the pants, set the alarm for an ungodly hour, and—feeling completely groggy—set off on Friday. I fed the parking meter at Schaabe, but after an hour of wandering along the lagoon shore, I decided to drive on to Liddow; the entire bank was choked with reeds, ruining both the view and any chance of taking photos.

Liddow is beautiful and accessible via old concrete-slab roads, yet here, too, you can’t actually get to the water. The realization hit hard: the island is simply too big and the expanses of water too vast to find an eagle here by sheer luck. Even if one is hunting in the lagoon, it’s too far away for decent photos. Roe deer, cranes, red-backed shrikes, swallows… they were all there, but the king of the skies remained out of reach.

Mentally moving on from that, I climbed down to our rocky beach on the north coast with the family. I wanted to catch a little sleep, but Josh wasn’t really having it. And that’s how it happened: right on the very rock where I had photographed three cormorants just minutes earlier, this majestic creature paused for a moment. My heart is still racing! I’ve rarely been so moved with happiness. You travel halfway across the island, and then—just when you’ve stopped expecting it—the eagle simply comes to visit me, landing barely thirty meters away on a picture-perfect rock.

My mentor once said, “When the student is ready, the master appears.” Perhaps it’s the same with photography? When the photographer is ready, the animal appears? This is my year of birds of prey!