A gorgeous Greater Kestrel, giving a clenched talon salute, from “The”. Click for full size!
© “The”, all rights reserved.
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A gorgeous Greater Kestrel, giving a clenched talon salute, from “The”. Click for full size!
© “The”, all rights reserved.
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Such a grand shot! If it had been me who captured that, I would have been giddy with happiness. We have kestrels here, but I’ve never seen one in the wild.
Yes, a fine capture!
I also love the snag.
✊
That is a grand shot.
I’ve never seen a kestrel. I’m not even sure that we have them around here, so I’m off to check my Peterson’s.
Absolutely gorgeous picture. The dead branches provide a perfect contrast to the bird. Wow.
Wow! That’s an amazing shot! So, so gorgeous.
Thanks everybody for all the kind remarks.
Namibia is just SUCH an amazing place to be -- for photography, yes, but also just generally. Obviously, this is partly because there are so many great wildlife subjects to snap away at, but I think it also something to do with the luminous quality of the light (in this shot, you can see that more in the branches than the bird). And, yeah, those dead branches turned out to be a great setting! That was sheer luck, I didn’t even notice the background at the time, I was just so thrilled the bird was sitting there long enough to have its picture taken. (Here in Canada, kestrels, along with other raptors, usually make like a banana as soon as you slow the car down; don’t like humans for some reason, hmmm, I wonder why that could be?)
P.S. Voyager; if you own a Peterson’s, that probably means you live somewhere in the range of the American Kestrel Falco sparverius, a smaller (but considerably more colourful) falcon. Unfortunately, “our” species has plummeted in numbers over much of its range, just the past few decades. Why is still a mystery -- but, as it is largely dependant on insects (e.g. grasshoppers) for food, the widespread use of neonic pesticides is a suspect.
“the”