Everything is Permuted

The deep freeze seems to have ended, and the temperatures today were really quite mild for January. Mild enough, that is, for a couple of hours on the Downs tracking kestrels. Some days are good, others bad, and sometimes there are just too many opportunities to keep count. Today was like that. I filled an 8GB data card with shots. Some of them were destined for the recycle bin (currently creaking with over 3GB of data), and I was able to dispose of shots that on previous occasions I would certainly have clung on to. Needless to say only a small proportion have been processed.

My first sighting was as I parked the car. A good omen, even if it had disappeared by the time I'd unpacked the camera. I wandered down into the valley where I'd previously had some success, but the next appearance was back towards the road; and it was a pair. They seemed to be having some sort of spat over the territory. The female was clearly dominant.
Female kestrel chasing a male

The victorious female

I tracked her for while until she disappeared over the hill. Next up was a male kestrel which I saw swoop down into the grass. He attracted a small crowd of watchers while he devoured his prey (a worm).
Male kestrel

He was remarkably unaffected by the half dozen or so people watching, and didn't miss a beat when a large dog wandered past.

Kestrel taking to the air

He proved a particularly cooperative subject. The standard pattern of hunting is to cover a lateral line by hovering over a spot, and then moving sideways along the line to the next point. This means it is fairly easy to predict roughly where the next hover will occur. Then the only issue is getting sun-side of him.
Hovering kestrel



For most of the hovering shots I was crouched down beneath him, probably around 20 feet away. From a distance this is what you would generally see.
Distant kestrel

It was good exercise for both of us, and I was not displeased when he adopted their secondary hunting technique: perching.
Perching kestrel

Even in this mode they move along a line, making the short flight between resting points.
Perching kestrel

These shots make up - to a degree - to my total lack of success with foxes at the moment. The nicked-ear vixen is still around (she was in the garden a few minutes ago), but she's currently very intolerant of disturbance. So much as I would love to be able to add a new photo of her, I'll have to make do with one more from this afternoon.


There are more shots from today in the January Birds album.

Camera note: all shots taken with the EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens.