Hungary winter

Photography from winter hides here at Bence's is an exclusive opportunity. We now invite you to experience Bence Máté's fantastic hides during winter. Here you can truly capture images that stand out, and there's only room for six photographers plus Brutus, who has visited Bence in winter six or seven times before.

In February, it's usually winter even in Hungary, since the country is far from the sea, temperatures in the countryside can drop to minus 10 degrees or lower.

Pusztaszer is a village with just over a thousand inhabitants, located four to five miles from the Serbian border. From Budapest airport, it only takes 1.5 hours to drive.

The small village is probably best known today as the hometown of world-renowned photographer Bence Máté. Here the still young photographer grew up, and it's here he built his now world-famous hides for photographing bird life. Brutus was the very first foreign photographer to visit a then twenty-year-old Bence Máté, sixteen years ago. For a week they drove around the Hungarian countryside in an old Lada, bringing hide tents or photographing from the five hides that Bence had already built when he was barely twenty years old.

One day Bence showed off an old ruin where he said he planned to build a house to accommodate visiting photographers. Already the following year, the dilapidated ruin had been transformed into accommodation for five photographers, and since then photographers from around the world have come to photograph from Bence's now nearly thirty hides.

During the Covid period, the accommodation has expanded as well as the number of hides. Today there are twelve guest rooms, kitchen and dining area. Here you live comfortably and it's close to most hides.

The normal season has been from the end of April to mid-July.

But now Bence is offering some small groups to come during the winter season, the season when he himself has settled in a couple of the hides from time to time.

For it to work and be comfortable, we must be a small group. Photography is concentrated to a handful of top-class hides. But bird and animal life is all the more intense. Outside the hide called "The Theater" it's teeming with life, birds are fed fish during winter. Photography takes place around the clock, yes very much when night darkness has fallen. This is what creates the fantastic images with the help of spotlights that illuminate the ice and open water. Yes, you can sleep, after midnight activity usually decreases until dawn, then you can take the opportunity to get a few hours of rest. For sea eagles, bait is put out, and this contributes to their survival during a time when resources are scarce. Birds of prey come during the day, especially if it's cold. But the occasional fox also tends to sneak forward.

When night darkness falls, spotlights illuminate the area in front of the hide. We photograph backlit, and the photographic effects when herons shake fish with water splashing in all directions are striking. Some herons think "this place ain't big enough for both of us", and then there can be skirmishes with wings flailing in all directions whose contours are lit up by the light from behind. The splashing water is effectively backlit.

In recent years, cormorants also show up, but only as long as there's some daylight. It becomes chaotic when fish is available. When dusk falls and we get backlight from the spotlight, water splashes. Photographically absolutely fantastic.

We have a schedule where we're assigned different hides each day and night. We spend three nights in "The Theater". Here there's a bedroom for each person and a kitchen. Everything comfortably arranged, here we have electricity, wifi and everything else we need. From the kitchen we go through a 14-meter long tunnel out to the actual hide with room for three photographers at a time. We sit in comfortable swivel chairs with a suspension device that allows us to use two cameras with different focal lengths simultaneously. We sit de facto below the water surface and thus photograph at ice level or water surface level. If you haven't visited The Theater before, you will be amazed.

From the hide "The Cinema" just 300 meters from this year's rebuilt "lodge" we also photograph during day and night. Here we concentrate at night on the otters that hang out outside the hide in the reed area. The lighting is above the hide but we can also create backlighting that gives water splashes and animal contours that fantastic glow. Besides otters, herons are active at night. Grey herons come and fish right in front of the hide.

Both The Cinema and The Theater are heated, as are the other hides by the way. We never need to freeze even if in extreme cases it can be 10-15° below zero outside. Should we unexpectedly fall asleep, a small alarm sounds if otters should appear. With everything in order, you just lean against the camera and start "shooting".

In The Theater and at The Cinema you also have wifi connection. Of course.

It's not just grey herons and great egrets that are active. At The Theater, great cormorants gather to get fish. There are enormous water cascades (photographically exciting) when birds try to get the fish and keep it for themselves.

At the hide called The Cinema, the water rail is a daily guest, but also the little bittern and common bittern pose in front of the hide in winter, no guarantees exist naturally for the latter. At night it's mainly otters that catch fish and splash water. Images of otters you can hardly get anywhere else.

New is the kingfisher hide. With constant lighting from two directions that allows us to capture the kingfisher diving into water and coming up with 1/4000th second and with ISO 4000 gives images we've only dreamed of. In winter this can mean 30 dives during a day's session (with lunch break 200 meters away, in the lodge). A four-thousandth second gives sharp images, if you want the water drops sharp you can go with 1/8000th second. And raise the ISO a bit too.

Another novelty is the rebuilding of the forest hide, where we photograph both during the day and in darkness in the evening. Daytime small birds, woodpeckers, nutcracker. And not least one or more buzzards. Good place for action between buzzards. Roe deer also pass with a beautiful forest background.

During the hours of darkness we use lighting, not least exciting are silhouette images of roe deer with lighting from behind and dark background. Photographically fantastically exciting, when the cold strikes at night. In the evening, pine martens can also appear.

Some nights we stay in The Theater, other days and nights we operate from Bence's "lodge", where all comforts are available. And it's never far to walk to the hides. At most it's 500 meters to walk.

Everyone stays in single rooms in the newly built modern lodge. The rooms have direct access to bathrooms in the room. Through the windows on the ground floor you can photograph herons right outside.

The winter season is for an exclusive group and with accommodation in the new lodge. New is that those who want can travel by minibus from Skåne to Bence's farm and back. Then no one needs to worry about carry-on baggage weights, on this trip you don't want to miss bringing everything you might want to use. You can park your own car at Brutus' farm.

NOTE! NEWLY POSTED. We reserve the right for typos that are obviously incorrect.

This week in January is about creative possibilities that are not otherwise given. This is an exclusive opportunity to experience Bence Máté's fantastic hides during winter. Here you can truly get images that stand out. This is for hardcore photographers.

There's only room on the trip for six photographers. Everyone gets a single room in the newly built modern lodge. Since we are so few and extra operational power is needed to maintain the hides during winter, this trip is about a thousand kronor higher in price than spring and summer trips.

Outside the hide called "The Theater" it's teeming with life, different types of herons, sea eagles, cormorants, also pygmy cormorants and many other species.

Take the images you've dreamed of in the new kingfisher hide!

Lighting both from the front and back guarantees a shutter speed of 1/4000 second with ISO 4000. And unlike with flashes, the specially constructed

lighting enables series of 20-30 images per second without interruption.

The Cinema is specially built for photographing otters, but it gets competition from herons at night too. During the day grey herons and great egrets are common guests, water rails are usually seen in front of the hide most days and just during winter bitterns can occasionally show up. Little bitterns are also among the guests.

Photography takes place around the clock in both The Theater and The Cinema, largely when night darkness has fallen.

It's spotlights that help create the fantastic backlit images in the dark.

We sleep and eat three of the days in the residence with kitchen and several bedrooms that's set up with a tunnel out to the fantastic hide in the wetland.

It's always 18 degrees in the two large hides, The Theater and The Cinema.

We photograph along ice

and water level, the lowest angle gives striking perspectives.

The winter period requires a lot of preparation of hides and more. This fact as well as that Bence and the guides can only accommodate a limited group means the trip costs a bit more than usual. We have however tried to keep the price down anyway. And it's our thought that it should be cheaper to book into our groups than to book directly yourself - which isn't always possible either.

Now you can add the trip from Sweden, meeting place at Brutus' home in Skåne or pickup/drop-off in Malmö/Hässleholm, for 1,900 kr.

Just the drive from the airport to the farm and then back normally costs 300 € each way. Taxi transport round trip is included in our price.