Oh yeah, we were at a fund raiser for disabled children, and this guy popped up.
He did not have an invitation to the Spring day cake sale fundraiser, and worst of all, he enticed me to be rude, as I jumped up from a discussion that we had with the owner of the property that was sitting at our table. But I just grabbed my camera and started to click away on the zoom. Then hurriedly I excused myself and left the table to walk around in order to get a side view of the bird. It is a junior Harrier Hawk (Polyboroides typus), and of course I also had to wait for the bird to fly.
Now please don't stone me for being rude, but you firstly have to understand my love for nature, and secondly, I am a nature photographer, so no matter if even the president of our country was sitting at the table, I would still have grabbed my camera to go and get shots of the bird. People are plenty and we see them every day, but the rare appearance of this bird of prey will always be more important in my mind, and he will remain a priority above everything else.
So, come and see.
This was when the bird landed on the roof, at a distance of about 60 meters.
We had some very strong winds for the duration of the day, and when I say strong, roofs are being blown off with gusts at +100 kph.
Oops, the bird seemed to have some stomach issues,
So, I walked to the front end of the roof to get some better shots of it.
I just had to get that cloud as a background to this shot below.
Yay! I even got him taking off.
He even circled to make sure that I could get some good shots of him.
And finally, the wind took him away.
I walked back to the table with a sheepish grin on my face, as I thought that the owner would think that I did not respect his company, but in the meantime, he had a good chat with my wife, and he even asked me to show him some shots of the bird on my camera. I can tell you that he was mightily impressed, and he said that if he was a photographer, then he would have taken the same action that I did.
We did not know about the fundraiser, and all of a sudden, the invite to attend popped up on my wife's phone. So, we had to postpone another meeting, and we arrived late at the effort. After the late welcomes, a lady told us that she had saved some of the cakes for us and also some coffee. But of course, as it was a fundraiser, my wife insisted to either pay for the stuff, or alternatively to leave a donation, which she did.
We came away happy, as the fundraiser was a success, and I got me a bird of prey as a bonus.
Such is life.
I hope you enjoyed the pictures and the story.
Photos by Zac Smith. All-Rights-Reserved.
Camera: Canon PowershotSX70HS Bridge camera.
Until next time, cheers!
