Bird of Prey pictures?

Now this is greedy...taken from my back garden. Camera more or less pointing straight up. All but one image cropped. The beasties tend to be quite high up by the time I hear them, dash out into the garden and get them in focus.  There are about 4 or 6 Buzzards flying around quite regularly, but only one group of 3.

This is what they look like with my lens at 302mm

Cropped out

After this, they flew to the front of the house and were obscured by the roof.

Red Kite to and to the collection,

What is this raptor?  Or raptors if you can ID the little fuzzy on.

The memsahib and I were taking dinner about 30 minutes ago, in t'back garden, when I spied summat odd in the sky. Actually there were two of them. One not the normal shape I see over our house, more like a kestrel, and the other, bulkier also a bit odd.  The sun was getting low, with a touch of haze, possibly softening the bird's colours and making a bit more golden brown.

Have we got a Common Buzzard here?  Can't say the torso markings are like the Common Buzzards I see buzzing around our house.  Plus the ones around our house always have the classic fan tail.

This is what the bird looks like with my camera at 205mm.

This is what it looks like cropped out.

To confuse matters, there were two birds.  I think I actually wanted to photograph the one with the yellow arrow pointing at it.  I have a feeling that as it was quite small and/or higher up I naturally photographed the bigger looking bird.

The bird is getting ever higher. Now my lens is at 451mm

Cropped out

With the lens at 600mm, focusing was proving interesting.

Cropping out. Detail is not bad for a hand held Sigma 150-600mm contemporary, with yours truly wobbling away.

Kestrel as well

Unknown said:

Have we got a Common Buzzard here? 

Looks like a Sparrowhawk to me, Angus. Probably a female judging by its size. Don't know what the smaller one is unless it's the smaller male. Sparrowhawks do soar, I've seen them do that from my garden. 

Unknown said:

Cropping out. Detail is not bad for a hand held Sigma 150-600mm contemporary, with yours truly wobbling away.

Angus, another brilliant set of photos, wobbly or not, not that I can see much signs of a wobble.

The Sigma 150-600 Contemporary, heavy yes, but it is a very good lens, I use the same myself.

The Optical Stabiliser (OS on the lens) is very good at stabilising subjects.

Thanks Tony, Mike

I'm rather chuffed at seeing a Sparrow Hawk. Only about the third time I have. The first time was in our back garden. It lived up to its name in that it caught a Sparrow feasting on my bird feeder.

I can now up the greed ante. I spotted these four, yes four, Buzzards riding a thermal, during our daily lockdown exercise walk. In actuality I could have also filmed them from our back garden.

Which got me wondering. If I layout flat on a deck chair, would birds (who normally see humans upright) recognise me as a human?  Further, if I were to cover my body up to my neck with a large sheet (say huge towel or bed sheet - hiding evidence of latter from my other half), and perhaps add some form of flat head dress from my brow upward, would birds recognise me a being human? I may have to experiment.

There are possibly five Buzzards in this first clip. Something flies rapidly from top left to mid right

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I need to use a viewfinder, hence why I have to use my ancient Lumix DMC-F72. By contrast, my daughter (to whom I am convinced her mobile phone is surgically attached) prefers to use the LCD on back of camera. Isn't that odd?

The birds sometimes look as if they are in a fighter aircraft dog fight. Watch out for one of them 'dive bombing' another. Though actually, it is standard procedure: get high and dive on enemy, preferably out of the sun

I get roughly 19 seconds of video time with my Lumix to be below the 5120KB file limit of this forum. The next two videos are shorter.

It's brilliant to see the birds circling around each other.

I did think that the birds would all ride the thermal graceful like, circling in the same direction, one after the other where the up lift is greatest. I didn't expect a messy melee that these videos reveal.  They still look like fighter aircraft engaged in a dog fight.

I might, just might have to look at getting a newer bridge camera. I never was too happy with the quality of images I get with the Lumix. My daughter's Canon SX700 HS takes better photos. I was thinking of the awesome Nikon P9xx or P1xxx cameras. My first camera was a Nikon.

Like you, I prefer the view finder, I find it allows clearer viewing and reduces the intrusion of light which you get viewing with an LCD screen, and easier panning of a subject in motion.

Sadly, many camcorders, and it seems a great many DSLR's that are capable of video, all support LCD screen viewing and not view finders.....

You could always try lying back on a deck chair, it might make for easier panning.

As for the younger generations being glued to their mobile devices, I hear you, and fear, not only is it the present, it will be the future from a VR perspective and the reduced need to get outside!