Its Saturday - Not a Barn Owl day!

[John Harper]

Hi There

Well its Saturday... so therefore time for my weekly pilgrimage to worship at the shrine of "St Hawk Conservancy"

and for those regular listeners who have been mad enough to follow my previous posts... you will know that there is now a moratorium on my usual subject matter of barn owls.

So feeling a bit like a fish out of water i venture forth in search of something else to train my lens on.... As has been suggested by Ray I should be looking for something smaller, but was unable to find anything suitable.....so i thought i would go up in size.... not as big as a heron.....ah "African Fish Eagle"

So here below is picture of Othello. the viewers with long memories will know i have posted shots of him before but here is the latest one.

Tech details

EOS 1DMKIIN EF400 F5.6L ISO 640 1/3200 @ 5.6

But the question is did he catch it?????

John

http://www.portviewfitout.co.uk/othellocatch.jpg

[Asher Kelman]

So, he grabs the prey with the talons or the beak?

Asher

[John Harper]

So, he grabs the prey with the talons or the beak?

Asher

Hi Asher

He uses his talons to grab the prey..... but he doesn't get it right every time.

John

[John Harper]

Hi Asher

He uses his talons to grab the prey..... but he doesn't get it right every time.

John

As you can see..................

http://www.portviewfitout.co.uk/othellodrop.jpg

[Georg Baumann]

Fantastic!

Where is that conservancy?

[John Harper]

Fantastic!

Where is that conservancy?

Hi George

Its just outside Andover in Hampshire in England. Its a great place to see various birds of prey and learn about them.

The are also heavily involved in conservation. They are home to some Oriental white backed vultures which are one of the most critically endangered bird species in the world.

The wild population of these birds has been decimated in the last 13 years or so by what was first thought to be a mystery disease. It turned out that farmers had been using the veterinary version of Diclofenac (anti inflamatory drug) on their cattle. It stays in the cattle's system, when they die the vultures eat the carcase and they are poisoned by the drug (Kills them in around 48 hours!)

So they are helping run a project in Pakistan (http://accipiter.hawk-conservancy.org/Conservation/200706.shtml)to keep a viable breeding population in a secure environment and longer term release them back into the wild to re-establish a population.

Here is a link to their website (http://www.hawk-conservancy.org/index.htm) if you would like more information, and i have some of my other photos taken there entered in the competition section if you want to take a look.

Its a great place and they do vital work in both the education and conservation field.

John

[Georg Baumann]

Thanks for all that Info John, sure a place worth a visit!