male Sparrowhawk and male Blackcap

raptors clearly make better photos -- but I had less than 10 photos of Blackcaps in my vaults so set myself the task to take a few more this spring -- not the easiest of birds to get nice photos of -- I found the sunbathing Sparv while out without my camera and cursed-- walked 800m back to the car got the camera and went back never expecting it to still be there but it was and it let me take some shots before it just dropped into the adjacent hawthorn thicket

I need to get out more

raptors

a nice adult female Marsh Harrier from this morning and a reedbed hunting Sparrowhawk; I missed the shot of the male Sparrowhawk that emerged from the reedbed carrying a male Bearded Tit!

male Sparrowhawk hunting Snipe

not much wrong with these except all soft, at the wrong angle, eye missing etc-- had the 2x converter on in dull light taking shots of waders on ice -- slow shutter speed, bird appeared suddenly no time to change anything -- focus was slow and failed against the dark backdrop -- opportunity missed -- it didn't find any snipe either