An Owl In The Hand..

An owl perches on a gauntlet at a birds of prey display in St-Germain de Confolens.

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Birds

52 Week Smartphone Challenge: 25 Freedom

‘Free as a bird’. That’s what they say, isn’t it?

52 Week Smartphone Challenge: 25 Freedom

Tuesday Photo Challenge: Return

The well-trained bird of prey – such as this owl – will always return to its handler: especially when there’s food to be had.

Tuesday Photo Challenge: Return

The Eyes Have It

Cee’s topic this week is birds. As selective colour is permitted – and, I think, really works in this case – here is an owl (I’m afraid I cannot remember what kind).

The plumage is black and white in any case, so all I had to do was desaturate the greens in the background. Those orange irises are really very striking.

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Birds

Angry Birds

When my children were growing up in Scotland, a trip to the town of Linlithgow, just outside Edinburgh, was a common excursion, one of the highlights of which was to go and feed the birds – ducks, swans and gulls – on the lake next to the ruined palace (birthplace of Mary, Queen of Scots).

I can attest from a recent visit that the birds are still there, just as greedy and just as short-tempered when you have nothing to offer them.

(Yes, I know it’s blurred, but you try keeping your camera steady while you’re being dive-bombed by irate, hungry seagulls. Besides, I think it works; it certainly gives a sense of motion.)

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: In Flight

The Swan

This swan was sailing, as majestically as only swans can, on the waterway that runs through the formal gardens of Chateau Villandry.

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Birds

Macro Moments Week 30: Quizzical Owl

This week, Sue has set us a specific theme for Macro Moments – ‘Birds’. It’s pretty difficult to get a true macro shot of a bird, I should imagine, so here is a (very) tightly-cropped image of an owl which I took at a display of birds of prey last summer.

Fortunately, I was using my best lens, so I think it has managed to retain enough detail, despite the crop.

birdsowl

Nikon D800 with Nikkor 70-200mm ƒ2.8 lens at 200mm. 1/500 at ƒ4, ISO 100. Cropped and edited in Lightroom.

Macro Moments EWeek 30: Birds

Weekly Photo Challenge: Quest

Birds of prey are on a perpetual quest for food – even those that have been trained to take part in this ‘spéctacle’ at St-Germain-de-Confolens earlier this summer.

quest

Weekly Photo Challenge: Quest

Hugh’s Photo Challenge: Week 16 – Behind

Two waterbirds – one behind the other – at Taronga Zoo, in Sydney.

Behind

Hugh’s Photo Challenge: Week 16

Weekly Photo Challenge: State of Mind

Like everybody else, I was looking forward to the display of birds of prey at a chateau in the Dordogne – and when it came, I enjoyed it.

But I couldn’t help wondering, as I mooched about with my camera before showtime, what the birds themselves might think about it.

State of Mind

Weekly Photo Challenge: State of Mind