A community for people who like birds, birdwatching and birding in general!
Feel free to share your photos and other birding-related content here. If a photo you post isn't yours, please credit the original creator! Additionally, it would be appreciated if the location of the sighting and a date were given when a photo or question is posted. You do not have to give the precise location, something like "Northern Idaho, June 2023" or even "North-Western US, June 2023" suffices.
An alternative name for a kestrel, and definitely what this one was doing!
Reading, UK, Canon R6 + RF800mm, 1/2000s, F10, ISO1000, Exposure Bias +1 1/3
Must have knocked the dial as that should have been F9. For most of its hover, its head was in the shadow of its wing , making for less than perfect shots needing drastic post processing, e.g.
Try this one - still messed with, but gives more of the shadows
Which, just cropped out of the camera's RAW format (suffering from the classic dark bird against white sky issue with auto-ISO) was
And not entirely to my surprise, Windhover is even in the Oxford English Dictionary!
https://www.oed.com/dictionary/windfucker_n
And there was I thinking "that looks made up" :)
Dang - the angle compresses the dark areas together a bit, which prevents these ones from fully unfolding their impact. Love them nonetheless, thank you!
First time I've had my camera with me when seeing them hover - I'm not complaining about the angle :)