{"id":2053,"date":"2011-09-15T23:09:36","date_gmt":"2011-09-15T22:09:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/archives\/2053"},"modified":"2013-11-07T23:39:12","modified_gmt":"2013-11-07T23:39:12","slug":"rats-raptors-and-a-leaping-carp-at-falmer-pond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/rats-raptors-and-a-leaping-carp-at-falmer-pond\/","title":{"rendered":"Rats, Raptors, and a Leaping Carp at Falmer Pond"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

Well today was good. You kind of know it's going to be special when the first shot of the day is of a sunlit heron reflected in the stillness of the pond. The early morning colours at this time of the year are just about perfect.
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I took plenty of shots of the heron from different angles, and it was while I was busy with the heron that I heard some loud splashing from another part of the pond. A carp was leaping, and it became a game of 'guess where I'll surface'. I watched several leaps where the fish was gone before I could focus (too near, too far, too right, too left) when finally I got my reward. Bang in the centre of the frame and close enough for the camera to grab a focus. This is a shot I've wanted for a long time. The gorgeous light and the reflection are big bonuses!
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On a normal day that would have been enough, but things were just as good at lunchtime. First there was a hobby, a small peregrine-like falcon. These are summer visitors and will soon be heading south for the winter. They have distinctive vertical barring, and a reddish rump (both visible in these shots)
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One of the local (native) sparrowhawks also put in an appearance, scattering the flocks of house martins.
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The midday light isn't as good as early light, but it has its advantages, such as allowing fast shutter speeds when photographing these little devils. Yes, it's time for the rats. It was roughly autumn last year when I started to see them in Regents Park in London, so clearly autumn is a time when they become more visible\/active. As with the London rats, the Falmer Pond rats were busy picking out fallen seeds. When I get time I'll put a proper album of the rats together. For now , here's a small selection of today's shots.
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Camera note: all shots taken with the Canon 7D EF and 400mm f\/5.6L USM lens.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[990,1040,781],"tags":[172,1179,434,1183,1154],"class_list":["post-2053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bird-of-prey","category-fish-2","category-rats","tag-fish","tag-heron","tag-hobby","tag-rat","tag-sparrowhawk","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2053","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2053\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}