African Fish Eagle

This is a picture of African Fish Eagle taken at the Hawk Conservancy nr Andover in Hampshire. I go here a lot to practise on birds in flight so that I’m prepared (hopefully) when I am in the wild.

Because I am so close to the bird and using a longish focal length of 500mm, the depth of field is quite shallow. It does give a nice smooth background though. It is vital in shots like this to have the eye in focus (the near eye if two are visible but it is not possible to get them both in focus). The other problem I get with this bird sometimes is the contrast in bright sunshine can blow the white feathers on top of the head but in this one I have been lucky with that. It was in full sunshine (you can see the hard shadow on the side of the head) but there was enough reflected light to lift the shadows under the wings.

The hard part of this shot was tracking the bird. It is very big in the frame so there is not much scope for wobble. In this frame I have cropped the bottom to make the image aspect wider but the edges and top are untouched.

Kit: Canon EOS 1DIV EF 500 f/4.5 @ 1/3200s ISO 400

More of my photos can be seen at FLICKR.

Wild Red Kite

This is a picture of a wild red kite (Milvus Milvus) taken from Watlington Hill in Oxfordshire in the UK. The kites use the wind rushing up the side of the hill to gain lift and will happily cruise on the breeze just yards above your head. Depending on the wind direction, they do sometimes fly below you meaning you can get shots with farmland and trees in the background.

There is no great secret to taking these shots. Wait long enough and they will arrive and fly around.

Kit:  Canon 1Div, EF 300mm F2.8 at F/4, 1/3200s

More of my photos can be seen at FLICKR.