Posts Tagged: kestrel
A few minutes with the kestrel
Sometimes you impose things on yourself that, due to a chain of circumstances, lead to a total blockage. In my case: first sorting out the old photos and making room for new ones on the hard drive. That includes the pictures from my mobile, and there has been hardly any tidiness in the last three years, which is now quite a big mess. But, I have to move on and I have already been on two smaller photo excursions, but the website is dying and I don’t have the time to deal with it. Messed up PHP versions, distributed domains and broken SSL… all a load of crap. I decided to concentrate on the important thing: taking photos!
At first it was clear and cold and I absolutely had to get out of the door. A short ride to the Schultheisweiher and back – there was nothing exciting to see and it started to drizzle slightly. As so often, the lovely encounter came just as I had given up all hope. This young kestrel lady flew past me and sat down on the right-of-way sign right next to the Mainpark, at the top of the road. I climbed up the dyke and could see how naively it perched right on the side of the road and the cars whizzed past it just a few centimeters away. Hunger makes you fearless, I guess.
Kestrel nest
A hot tip from a photographer in one of my Facebook groups (thanks Thomas!) gave me the pleasure of visiting a kestrel nest from relatively close up.At first the nest box was deserted, because the “little ones” are already quite big and are already flying around. The whole family was sitting on the roofs all around. I think I counted 5 animals.
I lay down behind a bush for 20 minutes, opposite the box, and at least two came by. You a see how tense and concentrated the youngsters still are, when flying. The morning would be the right time to take photos there, because then you would have the sun at your back… but you have to work.
Beautiful animals and somehow there is a connection: I’m buying an “e” and would like to fly with it.
Kestrels in the fields
We spent ten days at Hilgernriedersiel and our appartment was located right behind the second dike with a roof window that gave view towards the meadows. Everyday I saw a couple of Kestrels hunting in the fields and I tried a few times to get close enough to get a decent shot.
Than, after a lot of misses and fences that I was not alowed pass one Kestrel sat down right at a pole, a couple of meters away from us while we were going home. I tried to calm the kids and told them to stay silent, duck down, put my 500mm lens on, looked up and it was gone. Cursing lound and stuffing my gerar into my camera bag, I finally stood up again, just to see the bird again…still sitting at the very pole, looking in my direction. I had looked looked at the wrong pole! He seemed to have pray lying at he bottom and so he stayed. Lucky me, lucky kids and very decent shot, that I usually wouldn’t have deserved to take. Was our last day at this spot, so probably gift from the Kestrel to me? 😉
