They have had a second set of chicks in another tree right in front of the house.
I saw this one hunting at the dam so I took the Loooooong way around with camera on tripod on my back as I crawled about 30 meters out of sight behind bushes and dam wall to sneak up on him/her. Propped the tripod to just protrude from the top of the dam.
Kept the dogs locked up in the house of course...they're well trained but not THAT well trained....
Anyways,
I'm happyish with this one as I worked on composition consiously and remembered to check and adjust various settings during the shoot, trying various ISO, speed, aperture etc.
thanks everyone
looking at it now it seems to have lost its sharpness in the compression....looking at the full uncompressed imaged the focus was razor sharp but it almost looks blurry here...
and a touch too dark me thinks
Oh well
back to the drawing board
:
]
frank