{"id":1312,"date":"2009-02-15T00:02:54","date_gmt":"2009-02-15T00:02:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/archives\/1312"},"modified":"2013-11-16T00:12:46","modified_gmt":"2013-11-16T00:12:46","slug":"the-female-of-the-species-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/the-female-of-the-species-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The female of the species"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->The very large majority of my kestrel photos have been of the male, but today I had rather more success with the larger female. The weather forecast wasn&#39;t good, but the sun was bright this morning. Perfect for kestrels, so I headed down to the Sheepcote Valley to look for them. The ground was sodden after all the recent snow and rain, and there were no signs of kestrels hovering. But I know where to look, and it didn&#39;t take long to find one of the pairs perching in the small trees.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/fox\/kestrel09\/album\/slides\/kestrels_1402094080.html\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/02\/kestrels_1402094080.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" alt=\"kestrels\" \/><span class=\"aligncenter\">Female kestrel (left) and male (right)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The male flew off to the far side of the valley and that was the last I saw of him. The female though, proceeded to perch-hop between various vantage points. This seems to be their preferred hunting method when it&#39;s cold.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/fox\/kestrel09\/album\/slides\/kestrel_1402094091.html\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/02\/kestrel_1402094091.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" alt=\"female kestrel\" \/><span class=\"aligncenter\">Female kestrel perching<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/fox\/kestrel09\/album\/slides\/kestrel_1402094101.html\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/02\/kestrel_1402094101.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" alt=\"female kestrel\" \/><span class=\"aligncenter\">Taking to the wing<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/fox\/kestrel09\/album\/slides\/kestrel_1402094103.html\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/02\/kestrel_1402094103.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" alt=\"female kestrel\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/fox\/kestrel09\/album\/slides\/kestrel_1402094122.html\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/02\/kestrel_1402094122.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" alt=\"female kestrel\" \/><span class=\"aligncenter\">An industrial sized viewing point<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/fox\/kestrel09\/album\/slides\/kestrel_1402094136.html\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/02\/kestrel_1402094136.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" alt=\"female kestrel\" \/><span class=\"aligncenter\">Fence sitting<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I stayed for about an hour, until the clouds started to gather and the meagre warmth of the sun faded with the best of the light. There are some more photos from last few weeks in my <a href=\"http:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/fox\/kestrel09\/album\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">Kestrels 2009<\/a> album.<\/p>\n<p>The fox was back  tonight, but typically evaded the camera again. I&#39;d missed him when I was outside actively watching (though I did disturb two cats), but later on I &#39;happened&#39; to look out of the window and he was lurking briefly by the pond. He looked quite at ease, and trotted along the path to the rear of the garden. And, no doubt, away through one of the many holes in the fence. <br \/><span class=\"aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/natureblognetwork.com\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/natureblognetwork.com\/button.php?u=Words\" width=\"0\" height=\"0\" alt=\"Nature Blog Network\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/span><br \/><i>Camera note: all shots taken with the EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[990,1],"tags":[1152],"class_list":["post-1312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bird-of-prey","category-uncategorized","tag-kestrel","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}