An afternoon hunting for insects on a property north of Maitland turned into two afternoons photographing this wonderful bird – the hobby falcon.
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I first spotted it darting down from a dead tree into swamp area feeding on dragonflies and hoppers, before returning to its perch up in the dead tree.
It was, in fact, the same tree in which sea eagles were nesting a few years back and which had led to some nice photos.
The remains of that nest are still prominent and, by further coincidence, two of my feathered friends, the kestrels, are always their.
They were sitting in close to the old nest and didn’t move for three hours.
I would not have thought they would be in any danger from the falcons, but the situation is certainly something out of the ordinary.
My previous experience with the hobby falcon came a number of years ago when one swooped down on a starling in Lorn, right in front of me, before lifting up into a tree for lunch. That’s the photo of it, on the left on this page.
The current pair of hobby falcons were intent on feeding non stop on dragonflies – and it went on for two days – and then they were gone as quickly as they arrived.
This hunter is the terror of small birds which are its chief prey. It hunts birds up to its own size, such as ducks, capturing them in flight in direct pursuit or in a power dive from above.
My method in photographing this pair was to use the Canon 7D Mark2 with the Canon 100-400 stabiliser lens hand-held.
What was remarkable about this camera was the speed in which it locked on to the subject and at 10 frames per second.
A great a number of shots were taken.
Eventually, because it was returning to the same perch, I set the camera up on the tripod focused on the subject , locked it and then took a number of shots as it came back with tucker, such as the photo above right.
I also took a good shot of one in flight (opposite page).
Bird watching and photography ... you never know what the next day will bring.
* Next month at the Maitland Camera club the subject will be nature. This competition will be judged by a well-known and prominent nature photographer in Dr Roy Killin. This will be on April 7.
All are welcome to come along to the event at Club Maitland City at Rutherford.
The evening starts at 7pm sharp.