Still shining

Another sun filled day and the good times keep rolling. I was guiding Nick and Claire from Worthing and the Trio was safely bagged and a fun day had. I once again had to work hard for the GG but we did find it a whole hour earlier than yesterday... Yet again though once located the bird gives boot filling views.

I also succeeded in getting some respectable flight photos today. Good light helped but I also finally realised that I need to have the autofocus on AI SERVO and this worked wonders on keeping on the bird even as it flew amongst trees. Best of all though was that we witnessed a successful hunt. The owl was clearly onto something and moved to a perch where it was bending right over and then just fell down to the ground. It was down for so long that I assumed it had eaten the mouse/vole unseen but then flew up with it in her bill. She perched slightly obscured from us and transferred the rodent from bill to talons. Then a couple of Hooded Crows flew low over calling and in a flash she picked up and swallowed the prey just before the crows spotted her. She then flew very quickly away into dense forest with both the crows snapping at her tail. We had followed her for over 50 minutes in great light and it was satisfying to cap it off witnessing a successful hunt.

Great Grey Owl with exposure compensation at -2 

the look

with rodent

rodent in bill

and then transferred to talons

a smaller owl that insists on sitting far too high up