When you are photographing wild animals, patience and a “never give up” attitude help a lot. Let’s take for example the Eurasian Bittern, an endangered species of heron that lives in wetlands in Europa and Asia.

EOS 40D, EF 4/500L IS, 1.4x, from car, about 60% crop

It’s a very secretive species that is active mostly at night and during dusk and dawn.
Last April, I spent one week at the Neusiedler See national park in Austria. This year was a particularly good year for bitterns there, as it had rained more than usually during the winter and many places were very wet - a perfect situation for bitterns.
But that does mean that they were easy to photograph. We got a tip for a god location from the owner of the hotel where we stayed. But the first morning we tried to see and hopefully photograph them we didn’t see a single bittern. The same on the second and third day. We heard them every day and even during the night from our room in the hotel. But we never saw them.
After three days of fruitless searching, we decided to give it another try on our last day. This time we were very lucky and saw not a single but four different bitterns, two even in flight.
The one above was very cooperative. It came out of the reed for almost an hour and closer and closer to our car from which the picture was taken.

The lessen from this story is: Be patient and never give up. Many photographers spend many hours over many days to get the perfect shot of an animal. Perseverance is the key to success in nature photography. This is much more important than the latest camera or the highest number of megapixels.
So the next time you plan to photograph a bird or another animal, be prepared to try over and over again. In the end you will be rewarded with a great shot.
The same is true for landscape and flowers. I know of photographers who camped several nights next to a large tree just to get the perfect shot of the tree in perfect light.
Again: Never give up!