red kite is this the worlds most beautiful bird of prey?

Very nice

thanks everyone for the nice comments

I have a 50D and am looking to pick up my own copy of the 400 5.6. I hope I can get shots as stunning as these.

I don't know if it's the 'world's most beautiful bird of prey,' but it sure is beautiful and you captured it very well. Really great shots.

Great pictures, we have a lot of Red Kites up here in Gateshead, never get tired of taking pictures of them, where did you take these?
ray

I see you're a yorkshire resident, Darrel? Where are these kites?

We holiday in mid Wales and see these regularly. Never managed a good shot, though. These are stunning, and such a lovely bird, always amazes me how big they are - you don't realise till you see them close!

Beautiful!

Lovely shots Darrell. I saw about 12 of these beautiful birds for the first time last week whilst driving up the M40 towards Brum - they seemed to be everywhere!! Unfortunately we couldn't stop and I didn't have any long glass with me in any case!

Awesome BIF shots.

We are VERY lucky to have Red Kites at all...

...the reintroduction to the wild in Yorkshire and Wales and other areas has really worked allowing us to see these gorgeous birds.

If you are not lucky enough to see these when you are out and about, or they are too high to get a good shot, then visiting somewhere like Nant Y Arian near Aberystwyth in Wales is great. As part of the reintroduction, the set up a feeding station, and they still feed the Kites every afternoon - literally hundreds of Red Kites come in for their afternoon snack, casing the joint before diving down to snatch the food from the ground! I am REALLY looking forward to my next visit there this summer with my new camera!

Cheers

Craig

Really nice shots well done.
Chris.

Great shots

JPBones73 wrote in post #9682089
I have a 50D and am looking to pick up my own copy of the 400 5.6. I hope I can get shots as stunning as these.

for the money the 400 5.6 is a stunning lens

to answer 'kestrel55' and 'cmansell' they were taken at gigrin farm

once again thanks to all for the nice feedback

Great shots.

It was a good weekend at Gigrin I think, snow on the ground to help the light on the undersides and low sun lighting them beautifully anyway.

I was there on sunday, in Tower hide, but haven't gone through the shots yet. I've been there several times before, but I thiink the lighting last weekend was the best I have had there.

Did you get shots of the Black Kite as well ? It was performing really nicely for us on the sunday but Chris was saying it hadn't made such a long visit on the saturday. Not as pretty as the reds, but adds to the variety (I have shots of a couple of the 'white' kites from previous visits, but didn't see any on sunday).

Great shots! Can't wait to get out this spring with my 400 and see what I can find.