The Best Place to Photograph Kestrels in Yorkshire
In early January 2025, I made the journey over to Yorkshire Photography Hides. I booked this hide within minutes of watching Dan Willis’s amazing video of his experience there.
Driving over in the dark first thing in the morning didn’t fill me with much hope for the day. It was misty, raining heavily and temperatures were comfortably in the minuses. I arrived at 8:15 and there was some initial confusion as the photographer that had booked for the following day called up and cancelled my session by mistake!
Fortunately, none of the above was a sign of things to come and the rest of the day couldn’t have gone any better. Mick was extremely helpful and guided me to Charlie’s hide where there were ample provisions for the birds. The rain had stopped and the mist soon cleared providing incredible diffused lighting and extremely rich colours.
When you first get to the hide you can’t help but be impressed. There are a variety of natural perches as well as intentionally placed sections of dry stone wall, fences and even the top of a telegraph pole to enable a variety of images to be captured showing the birds in their natural environment. A massive selling point of the hide is that the site is situated on an exposed hill, meaning the distance between the subject and your background is getting on for half a mile. This enables the photographer to ensure the entire bird was in focus whilst melting the background away to nothing. The resulting images make it seem as though the birds are popping off the page.
To kick things off, I put one of the (dead) mice out on my choice of perch along with some suet and seed for the smaller birds before returning to the hide. Having prepared myself for a long wait, I was astounded when this stunning female arrived in under 15 minutes to examine the buffet laid out for her:
As the day goes on you continue to notice the careful planning that has gone into the layout of the site. A good example of this is the nest boxes for the Kestrels that have been placed right at the bottom of the opposite field. This means you are able to see the birds clearly before they descend on the perches, enabling some fantastic birds-in-flight and landing shots to be captured:
Throughout the course of the day, we had multiple visits from four absolutely stunning Kestrels (male and female) who put on an incredible show for us. They gladly visited each baited perch and even had the decency to hang around afterwards whilst they cleaned themselves up. Below are a handful of my favourite shots from the day.
As well as the stunning Kestrels, we also had visits from multiple Jays, Jackdaws and Blackbirds:
Suffice to say I had an amazing day at Yorkshire Photography Hides and will definitely be returning in the near future. As well as trying out their other hides, I’m keen to see what Charlie’s hide has to offer throughout the changing seasons. It’s the sort of place that is capable of providing an enormous variety of images and one you would struggle to get bored of visiting!
If you’d like to head here yourself, you can do so by booking through their website here (no affiliation).