Peregrine

                                                   

 4 years on the waiting......

Some sort of miracle (for me anyway) happened last week: I've managed to take a portrait of one the peregrines in Aylesbury.
I've been trying for about four years to take (any) photos of the nesting pair from the county hall with rather disappointing results: the pictures were either distant shots so the birds were microscopic or the whole thing ended up blurry.
Last week I was out shooting something else and after I've finished I jumped into the car, put my camera on the passenger seat and I went to pick up my misses from the Friars Square car park. As I waited, the female peregrine landed on the railing only around 12-15m away from me.
Grabbed my camera, quick set, hand held, took one shot.
Now, everything sounds very simple, but before you say so stop for a minute and think about how many times it will happen in the next thousand years that a peregrine land next to someone in a car park AND there is a camera there with a decent lens on AND the bird will wait for you to take the shot?!

5 seconds later she was gone leaving me with this wonderful image....

If you look closely you can see a little knob in the middle of her nostril, it is there to brake the incoming air so the bird can breathe at high speed.

canon eos600d, canon100-400mm f4.5-5.6      1/125sec, f 5.6, ISO 200


Gab