A Trip Down Memory Lane - In Search of Red-footed Falcons

I have had two good days with Red-footed Falcons, one at Lakenheath Fen and the second at Vange Marsh. Let's start with Lakenheath Fen.

Lakenheath Fen 25th May 2013

It was on the 10th May 2013 that I visited Lakenheath and took a couple of records shots of the Red-footed Falcon in blustery, dark and distant conditions. Luckily, the bird was still present after three weeks and so with the forecast of a less windy, sunny day I set off for another try. Unfortunately, the best day from a weather perspective was a Saturday and I became a little apprehensive when I arrived at the site at 09.45am and managed to get one of the few remaining spaces in the overflow car park. Luckily, although the reserve was very busy, the sheer size of the place meant that the visitors were well spaced out. Even when I got to the far end of New Fen where the bird was on show, there was plenty of room for the 50 or so birders and photographers there.

The falcon was spending most of its time hawking insects along the tree-line at the northern end of New Fen, and most of the time fairly distant, but I did manage to get some shots.

The falcon then changed its hunting tactics and started hawking alongside the path, spending some of its time over the pool in front of the viewing shelter. This posed problems of a very different nature. Instead of the bird being too distant, it was now very often too close, sometimes swishing past just 20 feet away from your lens. At times like this my hand-held 400mm lens has a distinct advantage over the larger lenses requiring a tripod or gimbal system. After several hours and 820 shots I did manage to get a few for the album. What a stunning bird!!

Vange Marsh 17th May 2016

Luckily I knew the area quite well from a previous visit to see the Wilson's Phalarope and so I was soon standing in line with the assembled throng of bird photographers waiting for the falcon to perform at close range. It was hunting out over the marsh and never too far away but every now and again would approach quite closely, as witnessed by the machine gun effect of the many shutters all firing in rapid mode. It certainly did perform well and luckily the sun, whenever it made an appearance, was behind us.

When photographing in rapid fire you don't know quite what you have taken until you get home and look at the results on a computer. I was therefore quite taken aback when I saw this sequence. The falcon had locked on to a Mayfly which I have circled in red. Then, 1/10th of a second later it was still locked on, and a 10th of a second later still it had grabbed it with both talons. How amazing is that?

But the most unexpected of the day was when I was clicking away another bird burst into the shot, had a tussle with the falcon and flew off. It was only afterwards that I could see that the falcon had been buzzed by a Kestrel and interesting to note the size difference.

WHAT A DAY!!!!