After almost a year, I’ve gotten the photography bug back on my trip to Scotland. Yesterday we visited the Galloway Kite Trail, where daily feedings take place for the population of red kites in the area. Kites were native to the Galloway area, but had virtually died out until 2001 when kites were gradually reintroduced into the area.
Yesterday the feeding station wasn’t particularly busy; we waited about two hours for the kites to turn up, and when they did we got about 25-30 kites. According to the RSPB representative, it’s not uncommon to see 50 or more at a time, but recently the kites have been feeding off of food dug up by tractors ploughing the fields.
In any case, I got some good bird-in-flight pictures, and a lot of practice! This was taken with my go-to nature combination: the 7D equipped with the 100-400. Lighting was initially a real pain with the sun overhead, but as the day progressed I was able to find locations to get some pretty good shots. It took me a little while to get into it, but the 7D has an excellent focusing system and I was able to track using the centre AF point after a little while.
All-in-all, it’s been nice to get back into photography a bit, and hopefully you’ll see me around a bit more from now on.
