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Floating Bird Hide Adventure with Glenn Vermeersch
Hi, and welcome to another bird story.
Most bird photographers in Belgium and the Netherlands have heard of — or are familiar with — the work of Glenn Vermeersch, a Belgian biologist and highly talented bird photographer. Glenn is perhaps best known for renting out bird hides and organizing bird photography workshops. No matter your level of experience, you’ll always learn something new from him — from clever field techniques to insights about bird behavior.
Recently, Glenn started offering floating bird hide workshops, a concept that immediately caught my attention. It was something I had never experienced before, so when I saw his advertisement, I didn’t hesitate long before signing up.
Well, to be honest, I did hesitate for a moment — the half-day workshop costs €200. Still, it had been on my bird photography bucket list for quite some time, and the opportunity was simply too good to pass up.
Like many photographers, I’ve always been fascinated by those stunning images of Great Crested Grebes performing their elegant courtship dances on the water. I had long dreamed of capturing that magical moment myself — especially from that incredibly low perspective that floating hides make possible. And since March is the perfect time for courtship behavior, the timing couldn’t have been better.
When I arrived at the meeting point, I met another participant, Johan, who was just as excited as I was. We started by putting on thick thermal wading suits, while Glenn carefully secured our camera gear to the small floating rafts. After a detailed briefing and some final adjustments, he pulled our floating hides out onto the water. Then came the moment of truth: stepping into the 3–4°C cold water.
Thanks to the high-quality suits, we stayed perfectly dry — and surprisingly warm — even after two and a half hours in the water.
Supposingly we’ve chosen the best day of the month weather-wise because it was a beautiful clear and very sunny Friday, ideal for bird photography. Glenn told us what, where and when to expect the Grebes, therefor we were well prepared and had the time inside the hide to adjust our settings and focus in the right direction. 2,5 Hours flew by like an F1 car and I could have stayed there at least for several hours more, although the cold slowly entered my muscles so I started to cramp up. It’s truly an extraordinary sensation to be so close to these shy birds and to blend into their world.Of course, there’s in Wildlife photography never a guarantee that the species you hope for will show up or will show the behaviour you wish for. We had to wait for over 2 hours to witness the Great Crested Grebes courtship and it didn’t last for more than 2 minutes. Still, sufficient time to capture it and while we waited for it to happen, we shot Ducks, Common moorhens, Eurasian Coots and, other behaviours of Grebes. Summarizing this morning, it’s a perfect workshop to get acquainted with floating hide photography and is certainly worth the investment.
Below you’ll find some of my results from this workshop, There’s always room for improvement but overall I was quite happy with the outcome, I hope you’ll enjoy them just as much.
“A bird does not sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.” (Maya Angelou)
