Session with a Kestrel

I was recently invited by Austin Thomas to photograph a female Kestrel.  It is a wild bird that has become very confiding in him, as he has been feeding it for some time now.  He recently won the award of Birdguides photo of the year with a shot of the bird running towards him.

When we arrived at the site the Kestrel obviously recognised Austin's car, as it flew in and perched up nearby.  I got set up, lying on the ground, and in no time at all the bird had flown down onto the track.  This low angle produced some weird and wonderful images.  As it would run towards us, it's feet were at times completely off the ground, and with the track sloping away, the only thing in focus would be the bird.  It was great fun and I managed a good variety of shots in a relatively short session.

Many thanks to Austin for the invite.  I am very grateful to be invited to share, in reaping the rewards of the many hours he has put in, to be able achieve such images.

Photo of the Day - Common Swift

Photo of the Day - Common Redstart

One from a few years ago.  Richard Steel and myself had a project photographing these that lasted three or four seasons.  It is probably some of the most enjoyable work I have done, they are a real treat to photograph.  Having pulled this image from the files, I see I have over 2400 images of them, a lot of which haven't been sorted. The work of processing and cataloguing images is never ending, it is seemingly impossible to catch up. Maybe one day!

Sunbathing Lizards

Last Friday was one of the most unproductive days for some time. The young Swallows I have been photographing had moved to fencing which was inaccessible and the four young Jays in my garden seem to spend more time chasing each other around than posing for the camera, I'll be doing some posts on these two projects soon.

So having not really taken many shots I decided to end the sunny day at my local RSPB reserve, I sat in the hide for over an hour without even seeing anything worth pointing the camera at. Giving up I headed back to the car, on the way I unexpectedly spotted two Lizards basking in the evening sun, I thought they would disappear when they saw me, but having got a few record shots I was then able to change the lens and move in for some close-ups. I had never photographed Lizards before so this was quite a good end to an otherwise rubbish day.

Redstarts

The Redstart is one of those species I find that I have to photograph every year, even though I have many hundreds of images of them, it's almost like an addiction. The Welsh woodlands are full of them at this time of year and so I spend quite a bit of time over there. The pair I photograph seem to have bred a little earlier than usual this year and the young had fledged at the beginning of June. I was hoping to get shots of the adults feeding the young away from the nest, but last weeks weather put paid to that, hopefully they won't have become too independent when I go back this week.

I'll probably do another post in a few weeks if all goes well, for now here's some of this years shots, starting of with a few of the the star of the show - the male, one of the female and then a young chick.