{"id":977,"date":"2007-10-20T23:10:43","date_gmt":"2007-10-20T22:10:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/archives\/977"},"modified":"2013-11-24T13:53:52","modified_gmt":"2013-11-24T13:53:52","slug":"birds-on-the-wing-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/birds-on-the-wing-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Birds on the wing"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

October days like today are wonderful. Great light, and blue skies, with just enough heat from the sun to keep out the chill of the breeze. Perfect for a spot of gardening and pond cleaning, but the real activity takes place overhead. Here's a selection. <\/p>\n

Of course there were wood pigeons<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

And we get plenty of starlings flying in formation<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

I was delighted to see this sparrowhawk glide overhead<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

But this glorious buzzard was the highlight<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

The perspective is slightly deceptive, but compare the buzzard with the gull<\/span>
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

I noticed the buzzard when the gulls started flocking, shortly after I'd taken the starling photos. Birds seem to have an innate instinct for taking to the wing a minute or so before an intruder appears. From a distance and with the naked eye it's difficult to see quite what is going on, so I always look to see if one of the 'gulls' has a rapid wing-beat. If it has, it isn't a gull. And I zoom in…<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

There are several more shots of the buzzard in the September and October Birds<\/a> album, as well as two more shots of the starling sequence.<\/p>\n

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":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[980],"tags":[33,358],"class_list":["post-977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds-2","tag-birds","tag-buzzards","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