No doubt photographing the Australian Kestrel has been one of my highlights of this season. I loved watching them hunt in the early parts of the season.
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I spend many hours just looking for subjects, and I was delighted when I found this pair of kestrels in a property north of Maitland in September. They were hunting and hovering in open country which unfortunately meant I was unable to record this.
The Nankeen Kestrel, compared with other falcons, is lighter and often makes changes in flight while hovering into the wind. It can also hold its position for long periods. Normally it is a silent bird, but during the breeding season becomes quite noisy.
It prefers open habitat, woods and grassland, and the male does all the hunting during incubation period.
Late in September I returned to this area and was in luck again - this time I found a pair starting the mating ritual.
The female had settled on a nesting site in a hole in a tree and, as I watched, I noticed that the male would land high up in the trees and call. The female would at once leave the nest hole and fly direct to some tree logs low down. The male would fly down and present her with a skink or other food.
This happened a few times, so I set myself up close to this tree formation and waited. The light was good, and setting up the camera canon with 400 lens, shutter 2000 sec proved very successful as the male continued to feed the female over a number of days.
I returned a few days later and set up in the same position. This time they mated right in front of me. Unbelievable.
Later that day I was lucky to catch them mating again nearby.
During these few days I recorded the bird carrying food to the female. Sometimes the male would go to the location and then call the female which would fly straight to him (picture 6).
Eventually things settled down, the female was sitting on eggs, the male flying in with food, and of course later we had chicks.
I then set up the camera on the birds flying in with food. Due to the position of the hole in the tree I had to use high speed flash fill, and due to the distance and the light on the hole a magmod extender was set on first extension.
For the photographers out there, the settings were canon camera shutter 2000sec F8 ISO 1000 but changing with the light, flash set on high speed TTL - due to the distance between camera and subject, one shot was selected. This was because with the flash was set on high speed, it takes longer to recover. Past experience has shown me that inside four metres the camera can handle continuous shooting, beyond that distance it is better to use one shot.
Once the chicks hatched a great number of shots were taken over a few days using the setting above.
The visits to the nest increased at this stage. As the chicks grew, they started scrambling and we recorded this as well.
Great subject, and a great experience.
