Birds Show Birds

Peregrine falcon at the California Raptor Center open house (post-snack)

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Not often do I see birds over in my area, but yesterday morning I noticed a lot of bird activity in the small park in my neighbourhood and a few of the Sparrows were helicopter-ing above the grass looking for little critters. I wasn't exactly prepared for them (and didn't have time to study and observe, I had 15 minutes to get to work).

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These 2 were, successful, quick grabs of one of the Sparrows before they got too shy of me and took off. But it's something I would like to look into in the future, just need to get up early enough in the morning to catch their breakfast before they get to shy about larger predators in the mid-day sun.

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Just chilling.
 
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Swans at the Great Western Canal (Somerset). I had a short trip opportunity (work-related) to walk by the canal, which has a huge variety and abundance of wildlife, but I didn't have any telephoto lenses with me and all I could do is quick-grab images.

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Mamma and Papa Swan with their 7 little babies, quite a successful brood they have and they should make it through because the only large predators in the area are foxes. The canal is wide enough and dense enough on the edges to keep them safe.

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I wish I lived closer to the Great Western Canal but it's so far away I would need a car or bike to get there on a main road (and not all drivers are friendly about that). But it's such an amazing area for bird photography.

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Even the Common Ducks are quite bountiful with 13 little ones in tow.

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Mallard Duck just chilling on to of the grass.

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Another Mallard Duck standing out from the grass because of the bright red beak.

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The canal is navigable with small boats and kayaks, which would be an amazing opportunity for some low-angle composition, but you will need a shorter telephoto lens to be able to fit the subject in the frame, 100-400mm at most and even a 70-200mm would be enough.

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The Mallards seem to prefer the tall grass and reeds to hide in.

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This girl has 2 boyfriends :p

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The backgrounds are beautiful but unfortunately there are quite a lot of powerlines and farmers making fires with black smoke (which I had to crop out both), everything else is beautiful hills and farmhouses.
 
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Not sure what exactly was the argument about but the top bird was unrelenting on the bottom bird. It was swooping in and out for quite a few minutes.

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And I'm not sure if it won their "argument" but the other bird eventually left ... while the attacking bird kept going at it for a few more minutes.
 
I was trying to track some the other day and I was getting dizzy and had to stop. Good work!
Thanks! Adjusting some focus modes and upping my shutter speed has improved my keeper rate of these guys quite a bit, but still a challenge! I had one at almost the same moment @Zapp captured a page or so back, but it was a little too soft to be usable ☹️
 
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