Pittswood Birds

Another absolute shocker of a spring day with heavy rain all morning followed by hefty showers and a strong wind for the afternoon. Needless to say, that stopped any thought of going out for a patch visit today, it's not so much the getting wet, but in that kind of weather little can be expected of any note  :-(

So the afternoon was spent watching the garden, where as usual when the weather is like todays, the SPARROWHAWK sets up residence, until finally getting it's lunch. Unfortunately todays lunch was one of only two STARLINGS that feed in my garden, more unfortunately, this was probably one of the pair nesting in my roof, a sad demise to a rapidly dwindling bird on my patch  :-(

As the Sprawk was the only bird showing, I tried to get some shots of it, the first two were taken as it made a failed attempt to make a kill early in the afternoon, the other shots are of it eating the Starling an hour later. A shame I had to take the photo's through rain splattered double glazing ! Also a shame that the sprawk chose to eat its meal behind that green pole!   :-)

Sprawk

Just look at the razor sharp talons on that!

The Starling had already been dragged to the nearby pond and drowned, then as the Sprawk started eating a hefty shower passed over, making photography difficult to say the least

I was down to a 30th of a second shutter speed, at ISO 1000, aperture F6.3 and through wet double glazing, its amazing how well the photo's turned out!

The shower passed over and a glimpse of sun back lit the scene

The Sprawk was sat here eating for 40 mins, finally taking off with the remains of the Starling to go elsewhere.