Milán Radisics - River Tisza, Hungary

This assignment, was probably one of the most “short-lived” ones in the Wild Wonders of Europe missions’ history. I shot  a special type of maylfy, worldwide the biggest type.These 12 cm long insects develop for over 3 years in the shape of a larvae,  7-10 m deep in the water covered in mud, just to prapare for the most important hour of their lives to preserve the species. In just one hour they molt, mate, and die.

This process is a very spectacular natural event, which takes place on the river Tisza, every year around mid-june. Since the major part of the river flows through Hungary, the main swarming takes place locally.
But still, you need good information, and a huge amount of luck to be able to witness the ”Tisza flourishing”.
The appearing of this phenomenon depends on a lot of factors such as the height of the river, the temperature of the water and  the air temperature and even the phase the moon is in.
The only thing I could rely on, was the information from my friend Gergely József, an ornithologist and journalist from Vojvodina.  When the mayfly swarming starts in northern Serbia, it takes only 3 days for it to arrive in Hungary. So after a simple calculation I could make sure that, the swarming would reach Hungary on a Friday in June, which I chose to be  the first day of my mission.

Fully equipped, I made myself on the way, to prepare at the riverbank for the swarming, which I expected around 17:00 h. I found the right spot, at a curve where the soil was muddy enough, and the light seemed to be ideal. All circumstances seemed to be good, except for one factor!
There was an aweful wind blowing constantly, which completely ruffled the surface of the water…
I waited patiently, but it seemed that the swarming wouldn’t start. I only saw a few lost mayflies, which started to molt in front of me. So because I didn’t want to loose any more time I made a few macro shots, and started to concentrate on the next day, which I hoped to turn out to be more succesful.

Darn! The wind was even stronger than the day before! Ok, I could acknowledge that the wind was blowing outside, but how could those silly little insects sense, that the wind was blowing, if they were 7 meters deep in  mud under the water?
I contacted Béla Násfay, an underwater photographer, who explained to me that yes, creatures living underwater could sense the changes of the weather very well. So according to this information, I had to accept the fact that the project would have to wait another day.
Sitting at the riverbank, the wind cleared my head from uneasy thoughts and I just let the time pass. As time went by the sun started to go down, and still no insects would appear. But since the sunset was very beautiful and inspiring, I captured some nice panorama and water reflection images of the river.

Sunday, 16:00h, again I was sitting at the riverside, waiting for the big moment. Finally the circumstances were perfect, bright sunshine, the water was low and the air didn’t move.
As precise as a swiss watch, the mayflies would start to swarm at 17:30. One after the other appeared, and soon millions of insects swarmed above the water surface. Whithin minutes they would start to molt, to appear in their new wedding dresses. Some of the mayflies even chose me as the perfect spot to get rid of their old skins, so I looked like a tree full of fairies. No matter in which direction I looked, all I could see was mayflies all over the air and the water.
Since I only had a short hour to capture the images I was seeking to get, I started the work, and went through the whole palette of objectives I had brought along. I took pictures from all perspectives and directions trying to give the most realistic images of the event. I tried to capture this breathtaking phenomenon, so people who never had the chance to experience  such a moment, could imagine what it is like.

As time went by, the number of the insects started to reduce and the females started to fly in the shape of a tube against the direction of the river flowing. They fly 2-3 kilometres to lay their eggs upstream  into the water. This process is necessary for the preservation of the species, because due to this simple method, the eggs finally arrive at the same spot, where the parents saw the first sunlight. Amazing!
When I think about this I always get fascinated by nature and it’s fantastic solutions to ensure the survival of a species.

Since the swarming usually takes 2 or 3 days at the same location, I decided to come again. The conditions where ideal again, except that the water level rose 1m. This meant that i had to go into the water which went up to my waist. This time I worked with a different technique: I placed the camera into an aquarium, and so I could ”float” the camera, and capture half -split images. I used this method to gain an insight into the most intimate moments of the lives of these creatures. But this exercise turned out to be more complicated than i had imagined, since the insects were zigg-zagging around very quickly. The auto focus didn’t help me at all, so I chose a fix focuspoint. Whithin two hours i filled four 8GB Cards, which i hoped would contain some useful material…

If you would like to see more, please watch my video from the field:

Milán Radisics / Wild Wonders of Europe

Please note that blogs reflect our photographers' opinions and not necessarily those of the directors of Wild Wonders of Europe.