Dear thoughts are in my mind
And my soul soars enchanted,
As I hear the sweet lark sing
In the clear air of the day.

The Greater Hoopoe Lark is one of my favourite desert birds and I can’t really put a finger on why. Maybe it is because of the effort I have put in on crawling behind them on several occasions, with a 600mm lens and all. They are so well camouflaged in the sandy colours of the desert and are usually seen singly or on pairs, which makes them quite a challenge to spot. It is only when they are scurrying along the ground, foraging, that the movement makes you look closer and then you see them. Unfortunately, the constant scurrying means that you have to really be crawling fast and are usually out of breath when you need a steady hand to click the image. And it is an intensely satisfying feeling when you manage a nice ground-level frame with a hint of the blue-sky in the top edge, makes the physical effort worth it.