Short-eared Owls -- hard to resist

appalling weather again but the owls were very active and out early -- splendid views and lots of interactions and display / calling when they were not being robbed by Kestrels  -not great portrait photos but an essence of the scene -- I have a lot of intimate close ups from a couple of years back

Short-eared Owl spectacle -- no light but

great birds, super sounds, out before dark for the first time -- no real images but some idea of the ambience

Rough-legged Buzzard from the nice HH's to more lagopus dots

the long staying Lincs coast Rough-leg a bird that is not big on human company -- one of two seen today the second in a new location

favourite images HH

Hen Harrier stick with the subject

One of David Tiplings books included a bit of advice along the lines of if you have a co-operative local subject make the most of it you may not get that species again - hence yet more Hen Harrier shots but in the sun this morning; I have never known a Hen Harrier show such tolerance of human beings and I would guess that it has not seen many humans in its life and may well be an autumn arrival from Scandinavia or further north-east that has arrived with the Rough-legs
In spite of these images (the best of 250) I am still not too happy with the 1.4x converter and the 500f4 on the Canon 1D4 -- I have maybe got the micro-adjustment wrong but performance and sharpness certainly seems down on the 500 alone -- more work needed!