There you go! After having traveled nearly 1000km down south and back, visited two national parks and used 4 days doing it without seeing a single new bird, you drive 10 minuets down the coast for a little stroll in the park and an
Australian Hobby suddenly leisurely glides by :-) The picture is nothing to cheer about, but sufficiently good for ID.
We had decided to do a little walk around the headland, a great way to spend a few hours here in Sydney. The walk covers a good selection of habitats and it is always nice to hit a bit of sea breeze.
It looked like all the good predators were out showing their feathers this late January weekend. We noticed a predator being harassed by a gang of ravens, typical for a juveniles not knowing how to avoid trouble in the world. Being a bit shell shocked after having been picked upon by 3 grown up ravens, the juvenile Peregrine Falcon was happy to have found a quiet spot and was not keen to get back on the wings again, allowing us to get a good close look.
Despite all the ranting about how fantastic macro lenses are, I must admit I had only brought the Bigma for this walk, sometimes it is just not convenient to changes lenses in the bush and the bird-in-flight pictures could not been done with the macro, the Hobby was simply too far away. However, even a old, heavy, light hungry super zoom can be fired up for a bit of close up action ;-)
Happy about the picture above, pretty sharp! Handheld, 1/250s at 320mm (480mm full frame equivalent), cropped a bit, but otherwise straight from camera.
Great walking close to home and realizing that the local bush also can deliver and that you do not always have to travel to where the grass is greener to see something new.
