Wildlife and nature photography by Arian Mavriqi. Birds, mammals and wild places of Kosovo and Albania, photographed from Kamenica, Kosovo since 2012.
Pl. 12 / Ciconia nigra
Pl. 12 — Water
Black stork, Ciconia nigra
A small fish caught mid-toss, the shallows turned to gold.
Open the plate →Kamenica, Kosovo — 42°35′N 21°35′E
Since 2012, Arian Mavriqi has left Kamenica at six in the morning to wait for animals that would rather not be seen: 
owls in hollow trees, 
storks on rooftops, 
foxes at the edge of the light. This is the archive of that patience.
Species in the archive include Pandion haliaetus, Ciconia nigra, Upupa epops, Vulpes vulpes, Asio otus, Merops apiaster, Alcedo atthis, Phoenicopterus roseus, Vipera ammodytes, Strix aluco, Cervus elaphus, Pelecanus crispus, Lanius collurio, Sciurus vulgaris.
Chapter I — 10 plates
Raptors, storks and pelicans
Birds held at the top of a wingbeat. The hardest frames to keep, and the reason he saved for his first long lens: to follow the migrating birds no phone could catch.
Keep scrolling
Chapter II
Lagoons, lakes and rivers
Lagoons on the Albanian coast, reservoirs and mountain rivers in Kosovo. Water is where the wild gathers, and where it is easiest to lose.
Chapter III — 13 plates
Under cover. Owls in birch and oak, foxes at the tree line, deer in deep snow. Fifteen camera traps keep watch across Kosovo when he cannot.
“You cannot do anythingwithout patience in thiskind of photography.”
Arian Mavriqi — Interview with Active Albania, 2021
Chapter IV — 16 plates
Close to the ground
Hedgerows, wires and field edges: the ordinary places where the hoopoe, his favourite subject, comes to feed. Laid out here the way a photographer reads a contact sheet: every frame, with the keepers circled.
the keepers
That is how long, he says, he waited before he could photograph a wolf in the municipality of Kamenica. The method behind it is simple to describe and hard to live: camouflage, stillness, patience and, above all, knowing how an animal will move before it does.
Three storiesbehind the frames.
Note 01
Look closely at the nest and you find plastic, woven in with the branches. For Arian, documenting wildlife has always meant documenting what we leave behind: from a stork’s nest full of garbage to one of Kosovo’s most beautiful birds, perched on a dumped appliance in Kamenica.
“Those who cause problems for them are us.”
Note 02
Asked for his favourite frame, he names an osprey over Badovc Lake, near Prishtina. A colleague, Fatos Lajçi, pointed out that the species had been missing from Kosovo’s official records. It is the kind of photograph that does more than please its maker. It becomes evidence.
Note 03
His first wildlife pictures were macro studies of flowers and insects, made on a Samsung Galaxy S4 that Albanians living abroad had given him. Birds in flight were impossible on a phone, so he saved for a camera, then for a longer lens to follow the migrating birds. When he began posting them online, many people in Kosovo learned for the first time that these species lived alongside them.
“You can even start with a phone.”His advice to beginners
An ambassador for the beauty of Albania’s nature, a strong voice for protecting it, and a great storyteller, in his photographs and in his words.
Macro studies of flowers and insects around Kamenica, made on a phone that Albanians living abroad had given him.
With fellow photographer Besnik Jakupi, he photographs and films a rare black wolf near Kamenica.
An exhibition tour from Scandinavia to Austria and Switzerland, including the Embassy of Kosovo in Bern.
His documentary is screened with an exhibition of his photographs at Green Fest in Mitrovica.
An exhibition of Albanian wildlife inside the castle walls, opened with Albania’s Minister of Tourism and Environment.
He films golden orioles feeding their young at the nest, and announces his first book, Wild Kosova.
On screen
His weekly wildlife documentary series on KTV, following an earlier run on the public broadcaster RTK.
Collective
A group he co-founded, registered in Albania and Kosovo and based in Kamenica, bringing wildlife photographers together.
Recognition
Named, with fellow photographers, a guardian of nature protection at an official state ceremony.
(08) Prints, licensing, assignments & talks
Pl. 15 — Radoniq Lake, Gjakova, Kosovo
