Our Red Kites and Winter Visitors

 We have a resident pair of Kites that fly around the house and are often seen in the local trees . This morning, the light was beautiful as they flew and then rested warming themselves in the early sunlight. There are also large numbers of Redwings and Fieldfare together with Starlings (probably immigrants) feeding on the abundant berries.

Saunton Sands in Rain and Sun

On Sunday, having fed the animals that we are looking after for week (24 sheep, 3 goats, some Hens, a duck  and 2 cats), we went to nearby Braunton for tea and then for a walk on Saunton sands. It had been raining all day and there were still showers around which gave great backdrops for the Kite surfers etc. 

Kite Festival Dunstable Downs

It was very hot at Dunstable Downs for the Kite Festival and not enough wind for many of the kites but, even so, the various teams put on some very impressive displays, including one man who flew 3 kites, one from each hand and one from the waist. There were also some bizarre individual kites.

Abbotsbury and Kite surfers

 The numbers of swans on the Fleet lagoon peaks around now as swans gather for the annual moult.
Kite surfers are particularly difficult to photograph as there is such a gap between surfer and kite.

Red Kites yet again

Visited Watlington Hill as staying overnight in Thame. Kites very busy clearing up remnants of picnics. One appeared to have an egg or golf ball. Liked the last picture as it shows how the kite uses the secondary feathers as flaps to manouevre in the dive.

Falcons and Kites

Some images of Falcons (Saker and Lanner) and Black Kites from Thursday. It was a dull day so I had to use a fairly high ISO to get sufficient shutterspeed. In the final image the Falconer was catapaulting food high into the air and the Black Kites were attempting to catch it.