Hide and Seek
Glassed in Estonia…
Finch Fight
Have you ever been to a wildlife photography hide? I’ve just spent a week at the Wildlife Dreams Hide Complex in Estonia, and I ended up with a lot of pictures of angry birds! The most common species was the European greenfinch, but there were also marsh harriers, common buzzards and a lesser spotted eagle. I was hoping for wolves and bears, too, but the only animals I saw were a weasel, a fox and a roe deer…
My photographic trips usually take me to Africa on safari, but this was a special case. Phil Gould had initially contacted me last year on LinkedIn, asking if I’d check out his new hide in Estonia. I was happy to oblige, but the deal fell through, so Phil had to find another location. Eventually, he managed to find one and build his hide, so we were back in business!
The Hide
Phil worked for Jessops for 25 years and has led photographic trips to Europe, Africa, and Sri Lanka. His first experience of Estonia came 14 years ago. There aren’t many wildlife photographers out there, but he saw an opportunity to do something that very few other people were doing—and the lack of local competition was the main reason he decided to build a hide.
The site comprises 18 acres of dense forest with a small lake overlooked by the hide. The building has viewing ports on all four sides with curtained-off areas for different groups of photographers, and Phil’s just done a deal to put up another hide nearby. I told him it sounded like he was trying to build an empire—but he didn’t deny it!
The lake to the rear of the hide
Inside the conference room, the hide had curved walls that made it look a bit like Bilbo Baggins’s underground home in the Shire! However, Phil had put a lot of thought into the facilities for photographers. You could raise or lower the desks by pushing two buttons, and there were power outlets beside each one, so you could plug your laptop in and shoot tethered or charge your camera(s) by USB cable if you needed to. There were also plenty of Arca-Swiss gimbals lying around, plus various spare base plates and tripods. That meant I didn’t have to bring my own—which was a relief!
One of the main selling points was that the viewing windows were glazed. The glass was a special, one-way photographic product made by Photo Logistics. From inside the hide, it worked like normal glass, offering bright viewing with minimal loss of light. However, from outside, it was almost impossible to see the interior—or the photographers with their cameras. That means the birds and animals could carry on with their everyday activities without being disturbed.
I’d only visited two proper hides before (at Kambaku River Lodge and Kings Camp in South Africa), but both were open to the elements, so I was a little concerned about having to shoot through glass. However, the panes were so clear that I quickly forgot they were even there!
Unlike most hides, this one wasn’t geared up for a specific species—if you ignore all the greenfinches! Outside each window, Phil had simply built various dedicated pools and perches out of rocks and dead logs, and he put meat, fish and dog biscuits out every day to attract whatever birdlife he could.
Every now and again, we’d realise something wasn’t working, so Phil would move the logs and rocks around or go out and find some new ones. It was an iterative process, but at least it was all under his control. He could tweak and optimise the perches and the background to his heart’s content, knowing that it would stay like that permanently and avoid potential ‘distractions’ in any subsequent photos.
In general, the hide was comfortable and reasonably spacious, with a kitchen, two compost toilets, a miniature shop selling branded caps, beanbags, mugs and jars of honey and a conference room with a table that could seat eight people. In addition, there was a Wi-Fi router with decent download speeds (55-325 Mbps), shelves full of wildlife photography books and a 65” flat screen TV with a Go3 subscription that allowed us to watch Liverpool beat Spurs to win the Premiership title!
On the other hand, there was no running water, the hide was a little cold in the mornings, I bumped my head twice on the low ceilings and the upload speed of the Wi-Fi was only 4-5 Mbps, so I had to go back to my hotel to teach a couple of my online clients. You can’t have everything, I suppose…!
Daily Routine
Phil Gould
I flew from Stansted to Tallinn at 1830 on Friday 25 April 2025. The flight only two hours and 40 minutes, and I only had to be at the airport two hours beforehand, which meant that the total door-to-door journey time was only seven hours—rather than 24 hours if I went almost anywhere in Africa!
I spent the night at the Mercure Tallinn, which was walking distance from the airport. After that, I spent one night in a sleeping bag on a cot at the hide and then moved to the local Hotell Karupesa. It was only a 25-minute ride from the hide, and Phil drove me there and back every morning and evening. In future, he said he would book rooms for his guests at a local hunting lodge only 15 minutes away, which would be even more convenient.
The daily routine was a little different from the one I was used to on safari. There were no game drives, just hours and hours spent at one of the many desks in the hide:
0530 Wake up and have an espresso
0600-0630 Drive to the hide with Phil
0630-2100 Photograph wildlife in the hide (with lunch at my desk)
2100-2130 Drive back to the hotel with Phil
2200 Go to bed
Simple!
The joy of life in the hide was that it was so flexible. If the light was good and there were plenty of birds, I could sit and take pictures from the comfort of a padded chair. If it was a bit quiet, I could read the papers on my iPhone, do my usual daily social media blast, do some personal admin, watch a movie on my laptop or just chat to Phil.
After a few days, I began to work out which ‘stations’ were the best ones and what they offered during the day. For example, the main viewing ports at the back faced east, so they were good for backlit shots of birds in the mornings, but the reflecting pool on the other side faced west, so that was better in the evenings.
Food and Drink
Dessert…!
I stuck to my usual routine of only having one meal a day, so I just had drinking yoghurt or fruit juice for breakfast, and then Phil would heat up chicken strips, lasagne, sausages and chips, a toasted sandwich or a chicken burger for lunch. I’d told him about my Coke habit, so he’d bought a few bottles in advance, and we stole borrowed a few cartons of juice from the hotel, too!
Wildlife
When Phil first mentioned the hide, he talked about seeing wolves, bears and even bear cubs, but that was just a dream! I had to content myself with various finches and Little Brown Jobs (LBJs), and there were times when there was nothing to photograph at all—except for the ravens!
Having said that, I took 30,320 stills and 31 videos while I was out there. I didn’t get any five-star images, but I had seven four-star images out of 353 that were worthy of sending to stock agencies. My favourite was probably Finch Fight, which didn’t take long to win various awards on ePHOTOzine!
The avian highlights were the marsh harrier, common buzzard and lesser spotted eagle, but those sightings were pretty rare, so we had to make do with European greenfinches and various bullfinches, nuthatches and sparrows most of the time.
We also drove to a local river one morning to try and photograph kingfishers, but, sadly, it didn’t quite work out. The river was picturesque in the sunshine (apart from the graffiti on the sandstone cliffs), but we only saw two common kingfishers—and they immediately disappeared!
Video
I’m shooting more and more video these days to go with my usual still photographs, and last week was no exception. In fact, I was often forced to switch to video (at 1/200 of a second) because it was so dark—despite all the lights! We didn’t get much sunny weather, so if I’d tried to shoot birds in flight at 1/3200 or 1/4000 of a second, my ISO would’ve soared to 10000 and more!
If you’d like to watch more videos from Estonia, feel free to visit my YouTube playlist.
Verdict
Morph
Getting stalked on social media for seven weeks and then receiving an unsolicited invitation on LinkedIn doesn’t always lead to anything good, but I’m glad this one did! Thanks, Phil.
The lack of animals was obviously a bit disappointing, but the hide had only been finished five weeks earlier, so the local wildlife hadn’t got used to the disturbance. It’s also true that I couldn’t afford another big trip, so this was a relatively cheap way of checking out a potential new venue for wildlife photography. In fact, given that Phil had kindly offered me free use of the hide, the whole thing only cost me around £500. What a bargain!
Phil and I even agreed to host a three-day workshop at the Estonian hide over the 2025 August Bank Holiday weekend, so if you’re interested, please check it out on my Workshops page! It costs £495 per person (plus flights).
Species
I saw quite a few species that I’d never seen before. These are shown in bold.
Animals (3)
Fox
Roe deer
Weasel
Birds (38)
Blackbird
Blue tit
Brambling
Common buzzard
Common crane
Common goldeneye
Common kingfisher
Common raven
Eurasian bullfinch
Eurasian chaffinch
Eurasian jay
Eurasian nuthatch
Eurasian siskin
Eurasian teal
Eurasian tree sparrow
Eurasian treecreeper
Eurasian wren
European greenfinch
European robin
Great spotted woodpecker
Great tit
Grey heron
Hawfinch
Honey buzzard
Hooded crow
Lesser spotted eagle
Magpie
Mallard
Marsh harrier
Marsh tit
Montagu’s harrier
Nutcracker
Eurasian tree sparrow
White stork
White wagtail
Whooper swan
Wood pigeon
Yellow wagtail
If you’d like to order a framed print of one of my wildlife photographs, please visit the Prints page.
If you’d like to book a lesson or order an online photography course, please visit my Lessons and Courses pages.
