Dale.
Bo Derek
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- Dale.
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This evening has been very interesting. Late afternoon today and I was making a coffee in the kitchen, which overlooks our garden. I heard a commotion but never really paid much attention to it, I wanted my coffee. I turned to put the spoon in the dishwasher and I noticed something out of place in our garden and when I looked, it was a Sparrowhawk, plucking an unfortunate Chaffinch. Thankfully, the Chaffinch was spared this, it was dead by now. My little Canon M5 was sitting on the worktop behind me with a 300L f4 on it, not really enough, through double glazing and about 50 odd feet away. Then I thought I'd try from the back gate but I'd have to go out the front and along the side of the house, at least that got the double glazing out of the way but still 300 f4. I photographed the Sparrowhawk but wasn't happy, so I went back indoors and grabbed the Sigma, which gave me 600. Back to the back gate and got some half decent images.
I still wasn't happy though, I wanted to get closer. I go back indoors, to the kitchen and out the back door, which I managed to open, but it did spook the Sparrowhawk but not enough to make it fly away, it just landed at our pond, which is also a wild. nature part of our garden.
I managed to get out onto the slabs and a long story short, I actually got to within 20 feet of it eventually. I'm sure this is partly down to the innocence of youth, on the Sparrowhawk's part.
The pond made a good, natural setting and I got some video. I took over 800 images, which is more than I'd normally take in 6 months. A magical 3 hours and it just stayed there, feet from me, snoozing and no doubt, digesting its Chaffinch supper. It got to the point I thought something was wrong with it or it was an escaped, captive bird but when my batteries ran out and I moved to go back indoors, it reminded me how wild it really was, and flew off.
Pics to follow in the photo forums tomorrow, hopefully.
Beware, some gore involved.
View: https://youtu.be/iB7yIZ_QKXg
I still wasn't happy though, I wanted to get closer. I go back indoors, to the kitchen and out the back door, which I managed to open, but it did spook the Sparrowhawk but not enough to make it fly away, it just landed at our pond, which is also a wild. nature part of our garden.
I managed to get out onto the slabs and a long story short, I actually got to within 20 feet of it eventually. I'm sure this is partly down to the innocence of youth, on the Sparrowhawk's part.
The pond made a good, natural setting and I got some video. I took over 800 images, which is more than I'd normally take in 6 months. A magical 3 hours and it just stayed there, feet from me, snoozing and no doubt, digesting its Chaffinch supper. It got to the point I thought something was wrong with it or it was an escaped, captive bird but when my batteries ran out and I moved to go back indoors, it reminded me how wild it really was, and flew off.
Pics to follow in the photo forums tomorrow, hopefully.
Beware, some gore involved.
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