Wild merlin pics

[awahl]

Checking a pond, this mrlin buzzed me about 5' overhead. It landed in a walnut tree about 100 yards away. A few minutes later, while I was telling my kids about the merlin, I spotted her (I think) sitting on a fencepost eating a sparrow. I got a few good pictures of her.

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s212/andywahl/aut_0026.jpg

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s212/andywahl/aut_0028.jpg

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s212/andywahl/aut_0029.jpg

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s212/andywahl/aut_0030.jpg

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s212/andywahl/aut_0031.jpg

[Falcon Boy]

Gorgeous bird!

[sevristh]

Those are some great pics! What were you using? Was she close or do you have a great telephoto?

[EricADugan]

Wonderful shots. I saw one around here with a sparrow as well last week.
Eric

[awahl]

Thanks. She is a great looking bird. I got close to her, but those pictures were taken with a video camera! I just got a new camera for school. It is a Canon GL2. It is a pretty high end personal camera/ low end professional one. The original pics are ~1400X1000. Pretty clear for a video camera without a telephoto lens. My little digital photo camera wouldn't reach out there quite far enough, and it was bad lighting. I am thinking about getting a nice SLR for school too. Lucky for me, I have to learn all the ins and outs of the cameras to teach the next generation.photoo I also got some footage of her eating. If I get around to it, I will post a little clip on here.

We had a good spotting day today: Prairie, rough leg hawks, ferruginous hawks, redtails by the dozen, merlin, sharpy, coopers and maybe a swainsons all while out hawking this morning.

[outhawkn]

I have a gl2, nice camera and nice job cameraman!peacee

[Chris L.]

Andy,
Great pictures thumbsupp.. very clear. She looks great. You cant beat seeing that for sure

[BrianD]

Those are some pretty impressive pics for a video camera!

[tumble]

Very nice!

[everetkhorton]

Andy:
You could not have posed her any better for the picture, very nice.