1445hr and up to Fly Flatts on a strange weather afternoon with a SW>5 which I can live with, 50 % cloud cover with a fair amount of sunshine, which I could live without , and the sky was very mottled with bright cloud making it very difficult to work.
An exceptionally quiet afternoon whereby after a walk the full length of the reservoir to the NW corner and back I clocked 1 LBB gull and the usual Canadas and not another bird of any description . Getting back to the car I thought Fly Flatts has really let me down today, little knowing that she had a surprise in store for me.
Feeling disillusioned I unloaded all the gear into the back of the car which is something I never do always leaving the camera on the seat in case I get lucky on the way home, a mistake I was soon going to regret.
As I drove up the track it all happened in the spate of around 3 minutes. A Peregrine Falcon came across the front of the car at full speed having a go at a Carrion Crow. Luckily the birds tussled in the air some distance from me so first instinct was to grab the Canon bridge camera from the glove box but no way was I going to pin them down at the speed they were dive bombing each other.
Expecting to miss it I dived into the boot and grabbed big Bertha with Pippa pulling at the strap thinking we were playing tug of war.
Ready to shoot now with no time to mess with the settings I stuck it on ISO auto and hoped for the best. The Crow was still there and suddenly I spotted the Pere very high up and steaming down in a near vertical dive towards the Crow although its wings were,nt tight back so it was,nt coming in for a kill. With the camera firing away the birds ducked and dived before the Pere gave up and headed off over the Slade moor.
Not an easy task following a bird of that speed hand held with half a ton of lens but at least a few came out presentable.
So after nearly 2 hours birding I got about 3 minutes sighting but well worth it. Like I always say with birding, you never know whats going to happen next and its very rare that I go home disappointed.
BS.