A Pilgrimage to Fulltofta...

My son is practicing his driving skills so on weekends we try to find a destination we can aim for. After weeks of mixed winter weather; wet and cold, or snowing and cloudy, we finally got a break in the weather and headed for the nearby town of Hörby where the old church has a resident peregrine falcon during the winter. The word peregrine is French for "Pilgrim" because of the hood I believe, and what more fitting place for a pilgrim than on a church.

 I assumed a small town like Hörby with a population of 7,000 couldn't have such a large church, so I expected close-up shots of one of my favorite birds. But it seems the height of Swedish church towers has nothing to do with local population, and our friend the peregrine sat atop a 20 meter tower, making this a job for the big guns...

No sooner had we arrived then the peregrine took off at full speed. I expected her to target a duck from the flock on the river right beside the church, but instead she disappeared out of sight several hundred yards away, and then a few moments later was back on top of the tower with an adult blackbird in her talons.

While the peregrine made short work of her midmorning snack we set up the tripod about 50 meters away to get a reasonable angle and mounted the Canon 7D + 800/5.6 + 1.4 extender. As we dialed in the settings we filmed and photographed. Unfortunately I forgot my remote control, so it was nearly impossible to press the shutter release without shaking the camera. But we had enough time to test and retest and about the time we were ready Mrs. Peregrine was finished with her snack and launched herself from the roof of the church and I managed to get a couple of decent shots. Here at 1120mm f/11, 1/1000 sec, ISO1600.

I tried for a repeat visit two weeks later, hoping our peregrine living atop a bell tower kept regular mealtimes. But she was simply not home and after an hour of waiting and while doing some googling on Hörby I learned that the nearby church in Fulltofta from the 1100's was supposed to have fabulous ceiling paintings from the 1400's. It was a Sunday and I expected the church to be locked for the weekend if there wasn't a service going on, but it was worth a shot. And as luck would have it the church was open and the ceiling was a truly a work of art. I even had the place to myself long enough to set up my tripod and with my Canon 6D and Samyang 14mm take a series of photographs that capture some of the beauty...

Here using 20 images assembled into a panorama in Photoshop. One thing I have learned about photography inside old churches is that it's best done when the wheather is miserable. The darker the better so that the windows don't get too over-exposed, and the lighting is relatively even. Today's weather was almost bad enough.

There's no good way to capture the entire ceiling in a normal way, so this 180 degree shot will have to do.

Despite living in Southern Sweden for 27 years, no one has ever mentioned the beautiful church in Fulltofta and the fantastic ceiling. I have stood in line in other countries and paid too much for less interesting places. So do yourself a favour if you're in the neighborhood or have out of town visitors, make a pilgrimage to Fulltofta. Besides the church there is a fantastic nature area with hiking and beautiful landscapes along the Ringsjö lakes.

Natures Hovercraft...

Kestrels are some of the smallest and most beautiful falcons and occur in various species around the world, including Australia and America. You've probably seen them somewhere along a road with chestnut brown wings, hovering over a field, their typical hunting method. Photographing kestrels is usually not too difficult. Those living near populated areas are are pretty tolerant of humans, at least if you stay in your car when you are photographing. The only challenge when photographing kestrels is getting the sun and wind to cooperate, since the kestrel will always hover facing into the wind and if the wind is blowing towards the sun, the kestrel's head will be shaded. So the best conditions for photographing a hovering kestrel is shortly after sunrise or before sunset with the wind perpendicular to the direction  the sun. That will give you a well illuminated bird and if you are early enough, some light on the underside as well.
The top two pictures were taken in Falsterbo on the Southwestern tip of Sweden during the fall migration where many of the birds heading South for the winter are funneled into a small corridor before crossing the Öresund Straits and continuing on to Europe and Africa.

And here is the same bird in an animated GIF image, consisting of 16 still images, which gives a pretty good example of the kestrel in action Double-click on the image for slightly better resolution:

This kestrel is either digesting his latest meal or taking a more leisurely approach to hunting.

And this kestrel has definitely perfected his style of hunting. I photographed him for twenty minutes as he moved from fence post to fence post. Looking into the grass for any movement and then making a small hop from the fence post onto his prey. He was successful twice during the time I watched.But that's another story...

Peregrine Hand-off

I don't know what it is about the peregrine falcon that has made it one of my favorite birds to photograph. Maybe it's the fact that they were nearly wiped out in the US back in the '60s before anyone understood what DDT did to their eggshells. Or maybe it's the fact that they are the fastest animal on the planet, able to reach speeds of over 200 mph (320kph). That speed alone makes it a less than optimal bird to try to photograph. It's just too fast, and during the 10 years I have been photographing them I have only a handful of decent pictures to show for it and most of those taken when the bird is sitting on a branch doing nothing interesting. So the series below which represents about 40 hours of watching, waiting and hundreds of missed shots, is somewhat of a dream come true, an adult peregrine handing off a meal to a juvenile bird. Truth be told the pictures are nowhere near as sharp as I would have liked them to be, but after ten years, you take what you can get. If only there was some way to get a GoPro camera mounted on a peregrine...

More (less interesting) peregrine images can be seen at
http://www.pbase.com/kingfisher/peregrine

2008 was for the Birds...

Looking back at my photography in 2008, I found many bird images. Here are a few of my favorites.


A windy day in April in a park outside New York

Easter in Spain together with the family was fantastic; with many photo opps including this vulture, but it is also the most expensive week for hotels...

A gyr falcon nest on solo trip to Northern Sweden

And in Southern Sweden the migratory birds are back from their winter in Africa and now have hungry mouths to feed

A week with my son Johan in Varanger, Norway resulted in thousands of images.

The loons in Sweden were busy with their young

As were a pair of cooperative great grey owls

Then a family trip to Norway with the in-laws in July brought great weather and impressive vistas

An August sunrise in Båstad, Sweden

A day off in Thailand after a business trip to India in October,

We ended the year with a week long trip to the Grand Canyon, Horseshoe Bend and Monument National Park. See the separate post for more pictures of that trip...

12960 photos kept in 2008; I'm happy with that. Now I just have to find the time to do something with them.

All the best for 2009...

http://www.pbase.com/kingfisher