South Aussie Raptors (part 1)

Been a little quiet on here lately... too many birds.. not enough time! So I thought it's time to throw up a post showing some of the wonderful birds I have been chasing with the camera. 

Now where I live is.. compared with other parts of the country quite lacking in native birds... plenty of ferals... but the bush loving natives aren't so keen on the sea of cereal crops which I live amongst! There is one group of native birds which do thrive in this area though... the raptors! From the Wedge-tailed Eagle through to the Nankeen Kestrel nearly all of raptor species which can be found in the southern half of South Australia can be found here!

Also this family of birds is my favourite... I spend more time chasing them than any other group of birds! So I thought I would start a series of blog posts to show some of these fantastic hunters as best I can! Hope you enjoy...

Not all these shots are from my local area... but all species shown can be found in my local area :-)

The beautiful Spotted Harrier is especially a favourite of mine... love to watch them working their way back and forth across the paddocks as they search for Quail, Lizards, Rabbits etc...

The uncommon Black Falcon is the bully of the skies in these parts! A super effective hunter in it's own right, it's also a very successful pirate and I have seen a few instances where other raptors have been alleviated of their catch when these aggressive Falcons want what they have got!

The Peregrine Falcon is always a joy to see... there is a few of these around these parts! They can often be seen trying to catch the ducks at the local sewage ponds

Peregrine Falcon about to land next to a Pink-eared Duck it had caught earlier

The Nankeen Kestrel is with the Brown Falcon our most common raptor of these parts. This one here had cached a mouse sometime earlier then whilst I was watching it from my car it dropped down retrieved it flew up onto this post and had a good feed right in front of me!

and here's the aforementioned Brown Falcon... a bird which loves to perch on the powerpoles and lines then occasionally drop down to the ground to catch a Skink, mouse or something like that

The majestic Wedge-tailed Eagle often patrols the skies in this area! Always wonderful to see... I was rapted to have found this young first year bird on the ground not too long ago!

The Swamp Harrier is probably the most rare raptor to be seen locally... I only have one record of one which stayed at my local sewage ponds for a few days about three years ago... I didn't manage any decent pics of that bird so here's one from about a week ago near Milang down south east of Adelaide. This shot was taken halfway through a three second hover which it performed during a hunt I was lucky enough to be watching!

Hope you enjoyed these pics and I will post the second installment soon :-)
Cheers for now..
Chris