Paphos Life

I was very lucky this morning when I caught that nice bird of prey in the first morning sun.... 1200 mm zoom !



close up


he has a good look down if there is something to hunt..


I googled a short while but could not find a similar looking bird...

Max

Strong gusts of wind around Tala. Pool full of leaves and other debris again.

Wouldn’t want to be bird today, eagle or not ... (Rather sit inside with a cup of tea and a Nuremberg Gingerbread round ).

Beautiful picture though. Well done and thanks for sharing.

A.

That second picture is a sight to behold Max!!

Beautiful. Thanks for sharing.

Max, it's a Long-legged Buzzard Buteo rufinus!


Shane

Shane beat me to it.

Lovely photos thank you Max.
There were up to four long-legged buzzards regularly over the Monastery/ Koili/ Tsada/ Polemi area until a few years ago. I occasionally see one or two now.
They are called the “Rabbit Hawk” in Cypriot, and it may be the dearth of hares [there are no rabbits in Cyprus], possibly caused by over-hunting that is responsible for the decline, although they take smaller prey.
My late hound sniffed out a recently- electrocuted long legged buzzard below HT lines above the Monastery a few years back, and I did intend to get the one kilo bird stuffed, as it was a perfect specimen. My wife vetoed that idea, as she wouldn’t allow it a temporary home in the freezer!
Jon.

Lloyd- certainly one of the differences between men and women!
Actually, I may have got away with it were it ONLY bacteria, but even though barely a day dead, in cool weather, the corpse was teeming with fleas, which were, I suspect, what resulted in both the bird- and I- landing out in the backyard! Can’t win ‘em all!
Jon.

Lofos-5 wrote: ↑Sun Dec 16, 2018 10:35 am

Wouldn’t want to be bird today, eagle or not ... (Rather sit inside with a cup of tea and a Nuremberg Gingerbread round ).

Beautiful picture though. Well done and thanks for sharing.

A.

Andreas, Instead of tea, try a home made ginger water, dipping the sugar coated Nuremberg Gingerbread rounds in it...(yummy) and very healthy!
(Ginger thin sliced, some cloves, honey, in a large cup and fill up with boiling water, 10 min. leave to draw...)

Max

See these regularly around Polemi, usually followed by a shout of "ooh, look the big eageley thing is back".

Well, it is nice what members were posting. I am NOW realizing that it won't happen that I am that lucky to photograph such a lovely bird of prey.
Actually I was upset about the poor sun rise when I spotted a bird standing in the air well away. I tried to zoom it, but it was still only a dot in the air.
It was finally pic no 87 of 110 pics I shot, using the maximum digital zoom on my camera when the bird started circling above my house AND obviously enjoying the first sun rays of the day. I still don't know how I managed that the photo was not blurred with this large zoom and only 1/250 sec possible.
Obviously ISO 80 helped a lot. The most difficulty was to follow the bird on the camera monitor by > 1200 mm focal length..Only realized the success when watching the photos on big screen while diluting more than 100 pics....
Here another pic showing the bird "standing in the air", even when it is blurred....




Max