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.

Visit Raptor Foundation St Ives

A few images from the flying sessions at St Ives. The falcons are always my favourites and this Lanner was no exception performing very well. The Kestrel and Eagle Owl also kept to pretty predictable paths. The Bald Eagle was from a static display while the Little Owl was meant to be flying but was too worried by an overhead wild Buzzard.

Birds at Wimpole

A few pictures of Mallards on the Lake at Wimpole this morning. The light was very good.
The male Mallards spent a lot of time abusing the females.

Any ideas on this raptor - most likely Sparrowhawk but does look very 'chunky' and was gliding very effortlessly so wondered about Goshawk

More images from ICBP

A couple of images of a very acrobatic Lanner Falcon. Most of the birds that the Centre flew were young birds still in training but this Lanner Falcon was an experienced flyer and performed the most amazing acrobatics.

International Centre for Birds of Prey

We called at the International Centre for Birds of Prey on the way back from Wales. It is situated near Newent and has a very extensive collection of raptors. They have a very good record for breeding from their captive birds including a Golden Eagle.

Visit their website (www.icbp.org) to learn more about the Centre.

These two peregrine pictures were taken during one of their flying displays - I love the graphic nature of the images - remind me of the paintings in the Thorburn bird books that I have treasured since I first became interested in bird watching.
The Yellow-billed kite image isn't unfortunately very sharp but I was so amazed by the Concorde impersonation that I have shared it on my blog