Whistling Kites

[Ralph]

On the 16th of March still out at Hattah Lake itself I seen what I think to be 2 young Whistling Kite learning about life without the parents being too close.
And I love the look on the stationary bird as it was happy to be photographed.

#1 the 2 flying about and an area I want to get much better at as it's isn't as easy to do as I thought.

#2 They fly by the old tree and this one landed with a feather in it's talons, not sure why.

#3 and here it it just looking around and not caring about anything as I can see.

# 4 Looking down at me in this one.

# 5 and my favourite in flight shot of the day.

[HansE]

I wonder if flying to them is like walking to us. Just something you do when you feel the need. It Obviously doesn't require too much brain power. I think I will see if I can learn a little later. Not easy to get them in flight I tried it last year at Charters Towers where they fly around the hill to catch the updraughts. Does your camera have animal eye focus? that would help.

[Ralph]

It does but with the Sigma lens and I am shooting in jpeg plus clear image zoom. It makes it lag. If I took off the clear image zoom then it would would better, but then for the main lot of shots I take I would lose out so one over the other and I picked the other.

[Isac]

Lovely work Ralph. Good sharp shots. Your kit, along with your skills, is delivering great images. The feather would maybe end up used as part of a nest. I managed a number of shots of the kites in S.A. when I did a river cruise on the Proud Mary a few years back.

[Ralph]

The feather was dropped a little bit down the track and the bird watched it fall like it's best mate had just dropped to it's death.
But happy with what I got this with the 2 of them.

[wigz]

Nice work Ralph. Getting a single bird in flight is difficult enough but you have managed to get two. Great feather detail in #3 and #4.

[Ralph]

Nice work Ralph. Getting a single bird in flight is difficult enough but you have managed to get two. Great feather detail in #3 and #4.

Thanks for that Alan appreciate it.