There is a pair of kites flying around every day and I hear their typical cries from morning until evening, so they are probably nesting somewhere close-ish. I hope they do and I also hope they will help with local water vole population, i.e. massacre it.
Unfortunately, I did not manage to get both into good focus, so a blurry picture must do.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
I did manage to get a few decent pictures of one of them though, from different angles.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
The pictures are of suboptimal quality because they fly very, very high. Even finding them through the camera lens is a challenge, and to take focus and press the trigger button on a moving target that high is a bugger, that much I can tell ya.
But no matter how high a kite flies, there was something even higher that day around her. I could not find it in my bird atlas so the species is not determined. If you know it, let me know in the comments.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
Most such mechanical birds have distinctive markings. The rarity of all-white ones should help in identifying this, but I don’t know these well enough.
Your raptor photos are just always incredible. How awesome to have these guys nesting nearby.
The last one puzzles me, but possibly Planus iectus?
Gorgeous birds. I find it amazing that a bird can hunt ground prey from such a height. I wonder what its like to have such an acute sense of sight. Gosh, maybe that’s something that you could try with video headset technology.
you can see an eye and those lil footies in one of the pics. remarkable!
Maybe it’s good that the picture on the intimate moment was blurred.
All of the kite pictures have the feel of movement and flying. And then the two that are in a great focus, the detail is amazing. It feels nice when one gets that long-shot in-perfect-focus flight picture. I once got lucky with a barnacle goose.
As for the unidentified white bird, Airbus and Boeing are the biggest breeders of these mechanical twin-reaction-engine fowl. AFAIK, these giant chickens are fairly high-maintenance and while the liquid carbohydrate fodder isn’t that costly, they consume prodigious amounts of it while flying. Also, the rubber boots they use tend to wear down at landings, so they need to be replaced periodically at a cost.
Wow, there are some great shots there Charly, the ones with the feet curled up are amazing.
Ice Swimmer @ 5
It’s hydrocarbon, not carbohydrate.