Still looking up: birds in flight

After having had some outside work here rained off this morning, I managed to spend a couple of hours outside this afternoon with the camera pointed strictly at the sky. Photographing birds in flight is an art, and one I have no where near mastered yet (and before you disagree take a look at this seagull by Andy). So there I was, trying various different settings on the camera, mainly upping the shutter speed and trying to get as much light into the lens as possible. Three-quarters of what I took ended up in the recycle bin, some are being kept until I get round to recycling them, and a few… a very few… have made it to here.

Herring Gull

Exocet Pigeon 😉

Crow

Those were all taken within the limits of the optical zoom on my Canon S2 IS. The next three were taken using the digital zoom on top of that, approximating about 35-40x magnification. The blighter was flying at one heck of an altitude and I could barely see it with the naked eye. So although the pictures aren't great, I'm more delighted with these than anything else I got today.

The wings and tail shape confirm this as a Sparrowhawk