{"id":2307,"date":"2012-06-20T23:06:18","date_gmt":"2012-06-20T22:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/archives\/2307"},"modified":"2013-11-04T22:03:11","modified_gmt":"2013-11-04T22:03:11","slug":"swifts-house-martins-and-little-foxes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/swifts-house-martins-and-little-foxes\/","title":{"rendered":"Swifts, House Martins, and Little Foxes"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->The decent weather is holding on by its fingertips (there&#39;s a risk that a storm may pass over during the night), and the modest warmth is bringing out the insects. And where there are insects there are birds, and there are none better at chasing insects than the swift. <\/p>\n<p>Swifts are quite astounding creatures. Living almost permanently on the wing, they touch land only to lay and incubate eggs. Even mating is carried out in flight. The youngsters can remain airborne for three years after fledging, and at this time of year when there are young mouths to feed the adults may gather as many as 100,000 insects in a day. According to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rspb.org.uk\/thingstodo\/surveys\/swifts\/introducing.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">RSPB<\/a> they average around 500 miles a day in flight, or 2 million kilometres in the course of a lifetime. They are no slouches either, and can reach speeds of over 100 kph (around 70 mph) in level flight. Fortunately they weren&#39;t at top speed today, and I had the advantage that they were circling in what was for swifts a relatively predictable pattern. <br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/swift_2006124669.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/swift_2006124666.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>After swifts, photographing house martins is relatively easy. They&#39;re also great insect catchers, but they are a little slower and do pause occasionally for breath.<br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/house_martin_2006124674.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>When swooping for insects over the pond, house martins thoughtfully include a slight stall as they grab their target (unlike the swifts who barely slow down at all).<br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/house_martin_2006124775.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>Back home, the fox cubs are still providing a nightly show. Just a couple of quick shots. to wrap things up.<br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/fox_cub_2006124828.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/fox_cub_2006124937.jpg' \/><\/span> <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 \/><a title=\"site stats\" href=\"http:\/\/statcounter.com\/free-web-stats\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/c.statcounter.com\/7187219\/0\/2c644058\/1\/\" alt=\"site stats\" style=\"border:none;\" \/><\/a><br \/><i>Camera note: all bird shots taken with the Canon 7D  and EF 400mm f\/5.6L USM lens. Fox cubs photographed with the EF 24-105 F4L IS USM 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":[980,4],"tags":[1142,1128,562,1186],"class_list":["post-2307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds-2","category-foxes","tag-cub","tag-fox","tag-house-martin","tag-swift","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2307","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=2307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2307\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}