The kites have kids!

[khiemtran]

It's summer in Australia now, and this season's fledglings are out and flying. These are juvenile black-shouldered kites.



I've often photographed the two adults, and last month I spotted one of the juveniles for the first time. But last night, there were three juniors on display. Here you can see one flying up behind an adult while the adult is hovering over some prey.



One of the adults disappeared off to do some hunting (or find some peace), while the kids practiced their flying and argued over who would get the best perch at the top of the tree.



Here you can see all three juveniles in the one shot.



The remaining parent looks like it needs some alone time...



But actually, it's looking for food in the grass below. Are you big enough to feed my greedy kids?



Next up - the kestrels have kids too!

Comments

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

How much I love your bird pictures. They're so clear and they capture the personalities of the birds.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I was very lucky yesterday evening to see the whole family out at once.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

Your pictures are getting better in leaps and bounds. Wow. (I mean, you've always had good photos, but lately, they've been absolutely stunning).

Also, what kind of tree is that?

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

The tree is a Norfolk island pine. They're quite common here as an ornamental tree by the seaside.

I upgraded to a K-50 earlier in the year, so that's probably why the photos look a bit better. The inbuilt image stabilisation and better ccd make a marked difference over my old *-ist D.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

K-50 High Five! For me, the jump from my 200D wasn't quite as dramatic, but I noticed that every picture I take is just that a little better. Though I do find myself fiddling with the white balance a lot more - previously, there was a little difference between sunshine and shade; with this camera there's a marked one. I've also discovered the 'forest' setting and am just working my way through the rest to see which of them are useful. (Not a great fan of presets, but on a dull day at Kew, the forest setting was what I needed; on a bright day it just looks garish. )

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Cool! I haven't tried any of the presets yet, but I'll have to give them a try. I mainly just use the green auto mode, or aperture or time priority. For these shots, I just set it to the highest speed that would still give me 800 ISO and let the camera do the rest.

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

What an excellent entry this was for me to see this morning! We had just been looking at raptors and migratory flight patterns of soaring birds over Egypt. Sprout was excited to see the whole family of kites.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear it! Those baby kites are certainly very cute. Although maybe not if you happen to be a lizard or small rodent...

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

The anxious concentration of the parent :-) And the fluffy messiness of the youth! Ahh, kids these days.

These are excellent.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

I guess the kids will start dispersing soon to look for new territories. Hopefully, they'll find somewhere nice...