Hop, skip and a jump

Another early morning start. With the absence of the Barn Owls on the previous mornings, I decided to go looking for the other raptors in the area. The Kestrel was on a distant telegraph post so I carried on up the hill through the village in hope that one of the Buzzards may be close enough to shoot.

The light wasn’t great but one of the Buzzards was just the other side of the hedge. I spotted a gap in the hedge and managed to creep up to it with out spooking the Buzzard. It was a little difficult focusing through the hedge but the composition was quite nice with the disappearing fence line.After a couple of profile shots I decided to move on as I had a line of very tall trees behind me so it would be quite a while before I got any better light.

I hadn’t seen the Hares since the hedge laying had been done so I decided to try some of the smaller bridleways to search the other fields near by. My luck was in as I turned into the first bridleway and one of the hares ran across the track. I pulled the car up as far as I dare and waited.

My arrival and presence has sent two hares charging across the field towards the direction of the sunrise. The hares stopped almost opposite the car and the light from the sunrise gave a lovely glow around one of the hares and I managed a few shots showing them in their environment.

One of the hares then doubled back and ran across the track in front of the car into the next field but the other one carried round in a circle heading straight for me.

The Hare seemed almost curious and came quite close to check out what and who I was. The Hare came right back to the track and walked straight down toward me.

He seemed quite a character with half an ear missing and doing a hop, skip and a jump every few steps. I managed some lovely shots of him before he tired of me and went off into the next field.

On the way home I spotted a Common Gull at the end of the sea wall in the early morning warm sunshine at Freshwater Bay and it made a lovely shot to finish the shoot.