It's definitly just a hobby

A visit to the Lizard tonight in search of Red Kites, Black Kite and maybe double figures of Bee-eaters...no such luck.  I did manage to connect with this handsome Hobby though, hawking insects at about 50 yards away.

Just for the "landscapers" amongst the followers, (esp. midlander!), this is sunset tonight looking westwards towards Predannack Airfield, taken with an old manual focus 50mm f/1.4 lens.

Emporer loses its' wings

This Hobby put on a delightful display hawking dragonflies with the Emporer seemingly the favourite. I managed to catch a brief burst of shots where it clearly shows one of the plucked dragonfly's wings falling to ground (below).

The image below shows the dragonfly looking more like a fish than insect.

Flying past the hide at Walmsley; this was the only decent, in focus close shot I managed.

EXIF Detail: Aperture F5.6. Shutter 1/1250s. ISO 250. Exposure 0.0 EV. Focal length 500mm. Hand held from hide.

Hobby at Walmsley Sanctuary

We were treated this afternoon to a Hobby hawking dragonflies in front of the small hide. The sheer speed of this agile bird is awesome when seen close up and is extremely tricky to follow in through the lens. By chance it landed in the tree above us for a minute or so, trying to balance on the twig.

Enjoying your hobby

These Hobby shots were taken today at Walmsley. It spent about two hours hawking insects over the reserve, occasionally flying past the hide at eye level. I took around a hundred shots, the majority of which were out of focus but these four were about the best I could manage. Falcons are difficult to capture because they fly so quickly and erratically. Add in the small matter of exposure against a bright sky and the problems start to magnify!

Walmsley regulars will recognise the stump below as the one in front of the hide at about fifty yards. The Hobby landed on the stump for a second before moving on again. I managed to photo the landing and take off but not the static bird...I'm not sure how this happened!

EXIF Detail: Aperture Priority. F/7.1 Shutter 1/400s. ISO 400. Exposure +0.7 . Focal length 500mm. WB Cloudy.

All images have been sharpened and cropped in Photoshop, except for the bird above the tree-line. The top image is a heavily cropped image from the "tree-line" set.