Posted by eric weight on November 27, 2009 at 2:57 PM
My mate laurence and I had just finished photographing not a lot all day and were standing back at the cars chewing the fat when he saw a spar hit a gull in the middle of the massive field on the other side of the road. So, I set the camera up again and we were soon watching, what actually turned out to be a peregrine ripping a bh gull to bits, on the live view screen.
Within a couple of minutes a buzzard landed about thirty yards away and started edging closer. The spitfire's having none of that so up he goes, makes a big circle round the field and races in on the buzzard at one hell of a speed. Buzzards don't have the hp that peregrine's have but we were amazed to see it wait for the appropriate moment and then do a spectacular backward somersault slashing at the falcon with its legs extended. They did this several times so I was able to get some really crap shots of the event given that it was about three hundred yards away and I was on f4.5 at 160 sec iso 800. Nevertheless you will get the idea from this composite. At no time did they touch.I have the whole sequence in 9 shots, but just couldn't get them all into 720 pixels. It was absolutely bizarre.
Thought you might be interested so I have posted it just for the story - I know how bad the images are , so no need for the C&C.
Posted by Ian Mason on November 27, 2009 at 3:34 PM
Amazing!!
Posted by Tim Taylor on November 27, 2009 at 4:11 PM
That's reallysomething! Thanks for sharing the experience.
Tim
Posted by David Taylor on November 27, 2009 at 4:33 PM
Any shots are better than no shots in the circumstances. I really like the composite shots giving a sense of immediacy to the story, complementing it well.
Posted by Guy Rogers on November 27, 2009 at 4:46 PM
Hello Eric.
Great story and I can only image how good this must have been to watch.
Posted by Pete Ansbro on November 27, 2009 at 6:38 PM
Amazing! What a fantastic opportunist experience for you.
Er the back-flipping buzzard: having "inverted", did it land on its head/back? It didn't do a complete 360 degree rotation?
Posted by eric weight on November 28, 2009 at 1:36 AM
Hi Pete,
I must admit that he got better at it. In that sequence above he never quite got in the full 360, more like 320. But as you will see from this sequence taken a bit later he did it perfectly. This second sequence has some shots missing at the start, because I didn't realise that the falcon was coming to begin with; but even more amazingly this time the falcon was attacking from behind, so he must have seen it coming over his shoulder! A definite 9.8; 9.8; 9.8 I reckon. Eric
Posted by Pete Ansbro on November 28, 2009 at 2:13 AM
Thank you Eric; remarkable.
Posted by Jeff Harrison on November 28, 2009 at 2:28 AM
Fascinating behaviour. Thanks for sharing .
Posted by Lewis Thomson on November 28, 2009 at 11:04 AM
Hi Eric,
Very interesting, the position of the Buzzard in the bottom pic of the first series is very amusing! Looks like one of those back flipping toy dogs!
Discussion
11 repliesWithin a couple of minutes a buzzard landed about thirty yards away and started edging closer. The spitfire's having none of that so up he goes, makes a big circle round the field and races in on the buzzard at one hell of a speed. Buzzards don't have the hp that peregrine's have but we were amazed to see it wait for the appropriate moment and then do a spectacular backward somersault slashing at the falcon with its legs extended. They did this several times so I was able to get some really crap shots of the event given that it was about three hundred yards away and I was on f4.5 at 160 sec iso 800. Nevertheless you will get the idea from this composite. At no time did they touch.I have the whole sequence in 9 shots, but just couldn't get them all into 720 pixels. It was absolutely bizarre.
Thought you might be interested so I have posted it just for the story - I know how bad the images are
Tim
Great story and I can only image how good this must have been to watch.
Er the back-flipping buzzard: having "inverted", did it land on its head/back? It didn't do a complete 360 degree rotation?
I must admit that he got better at it. In that sequence above he never quite got in the full 360, more like 320. But as you will see from this sequence taken a bit later he did it perfectly. This second sequence has some shots missing at the start, because I didn't realise that the falcon was coming to begin with; but even more amazingly this time the falcon was attacking from behind, so he must have seen it coming over his shoulder! A definite 9.8; 9.8; 9.8 I reckon.
Hi Eric,
Very interesting, the position of the Buzzard in the bottom pic of the first series is very amusing! Looks like one of those back flipping toy dogs!
Cheers,
Lewis.