{"id":1650,"date":"2010-06-06T23:06:05","date_gmt":"2010-06-06T22:06:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/archives\/1650"},"modified":"2013-11-10T20:46:09","modified_gmt":"2013-11-10T20:46:09","slug":"woods-mill-kestrels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/woods-mill-kestrels\/","title":{"rendered":"Woods Mill Kestrels"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

We headed back to Woods Mill today. It's about two weeks<\/a> since we were last there and I hoped to see the kestrels, or more specifically their chicks. <\/p>\n

It took a while, but the afternoon was pleasant (not too hot) and there are worse things to do than sit quietly in a field waiting for something to happen. After about 40 minutes, the first adult appeared. It was carrying some prey (a rodent), which it dropped into the nest box.
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After the adult had flown, a small head appeared \ud83d\ude00
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Some 20 minutes later, another food drop… this time the prey seems to be a small bird.
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And then, another head appears…
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The chicks are clearly very young, not nearly so advanced as during my trip last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There were other sights, of course. I finally managed a shot of an oranged-tipped butterfly. I've not seen as many this year as in previous seasons, but the males are wonderfully distinctive.
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And over the stream, the beautiful demoiselles were dancing. This was manually focused at around mid-stream, and then a matter of waiting for something to flash across the viewfinder. I wasted a lot of shots, but it was nice to capture them in flight. Nothing can convey the magic of these damselflies when witnessed first hand.
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\"Nature<\/a><\/span>
Camera note: all shots taken with the Canon 40D and 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":[990,309],"tags":[1144,1177,631,1152],"class_list":["post-1650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bird-of-prey","category-damselfly","tag-butterfly","tag-chick","tag-damslelfy","tag-kestrel","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t