First visit for a couple of months on a sunny morning. Hoping to see the reported pair of Kingfishers but it was just the male making occasional appearances, once looking at a hole.
But the visit was made worthwhile when a female Kestrel flew into the top box at the Kingfisher hide, then popped out on top. Suddenly a male appeared, straight on top of her and mated - to put it politely! Never seen this before. He flew off, she went into the box. Then she was threatened by 4 Magpies, one was being very aggressive. Eventually she flew off.
A couple of pictures (only cropped) here taken with my Bridge camera, not too bad for the distance, sure some of the Dslr boys have better. But like to share with you.
Simon
Great pics SH & many thanks for sharing - pipped at the post by this as I am waiting for my Kestrels here to do the same - all I have got so far is a fight between two males over the nest hole!!!
2013 photos & vids here
eff37 on Flickr
Well captured Simon I've never witnessed Kestrels mating, I managed to get some reasonable pics last year of the Kestrels using that box last year. It looks like the roof of the nest box could do with repairing though but its too late for this season, one for the staff to maybe do next winter?
Regards Shane
My Photos in Flickr.
Amazing photos! Why do they keep using the old box?! You can see how rotten it is - there's light coming through the top of the box in your photos! We put a new box up but they have ignored it. We were going to take the old box down but it had stock dove eggs in so we had to leave it up. It's always remained the most popular box!
Joan
Great shots Simon. Your Bridge camera is giving great results. I have trouble getting such sharp pics with my DSLR with 500mm lens. What camera have you got?
Ta for kind comments. My camera is a 2 yr old Panasonic Lumix FZ150 and I use a Raynox teleconverter 2.2 lens with it (except if I'm too close!). It has proved very good and the Dslr boys seem to be impressed. Of course there are limitations, it is not so good in poor light and focusing fast can be tricky. But it suits my needs, portability and cost. Got too many other interests to justify spending a lot on photography. It's also very good at id, at distances even binoculars can't reach! The pictures don't usually stand blowing up to competition standards, but can still be impressive. A later model - FZ200 - came out last year which has had very good reviews. Not upgraded yet but also looking at the current new crop of superzoom bridge cameras.