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Birds, Insects & Bats in flight (outdoors) Page 4
Image Taken on 01 May 2023
at 16:40 Image of day on 20 Jun 2023
A bee-fly hovered over the corrugated Iron sheet for several seconds before landing.
That's 27 frames at 7 fps skipped to get this pair 4 seconds apart.
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
Ref: 20230620_d72_20230501_1640_044+071 bee-fly hovering over and landing on corrugated iron sheet (accurate montage)(r+mb id@768).jpg
Image Taken on 08 Apr 2023
at 12:47 Image of day on 19 May 2023
This Bee-fly is feeding by hovering in front of a blackthorn flower.
The 'sharp' wing is just changing the direction of movement - the rest of the 20 or so
pics of this moment have wings a blurry mess even at 1/1000th second exposure.
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
Ref: 20230519_df3_20230408_1247_170 bee-fly hovering to feed on blackthorn blossom (crop)(r+mb id@768).jpg
Image Taken on 30 Mar 2019
at 14:57 Image of day on 01 May 2019
... and here a Bee-fly hovers back to camera 'into the wind'.
Look for that long (harmless) proboscis - it is NOT a stinger.
(r+mb id@576).jpg)
Ref: 20190501_df5_20190330_1457_074 bee-fly in flight (1st of 2019)(r+mb id@576).jpg
Image Taken on 30 Mar 2025
at 12:40 Image of day on 12 May 2025
The Bee-flies are about - a sure sign of Spring.
They look dangerous, but are harmless to humans.
(r+mb id@576).jpg)
Ref: 20250512_df3_20250330_1240_004 bee-fly in flight (typically 1cm long)(r+mb id@576).jpg
Image Taken on 08 Sep 2021
at 07:29 Image of day on 20 Oct 2021
A Black Backed Gull flies past, here shown at about 140mS intervals but more
closely spaced than reality.
(r+mb id@1024).jpg)
Ref: 20211020_df3_20210908_0729_012-016 black backed gull in flight @7fps (close spaced montage)(r+mb id@1024).jpg
Image Taken on 19 Sep 2014
at 15:53 Image of day on 29 Nov 2014
Another Cranefly goes down the throat of an ever hungry Black-headed gull.
The third image just shows one of the wings hanging out of the
beak - enlarged at the bottom right.
(r+mb id@1024).jpg)
Ref: 20141129_df2_20140919_1553_748-750 black headed gull catching crane-fly in flight 1-3 of 5 (downwards montage @5ps with insert)(r+mb id@1024).jpg
Image Taken on 19 Sep 2014
at 15:52 Image of day on 29 Nov 2014
With the air full of various insects, especially the
juicy Craneflies (Daddy Long legs for the uninitiated) we discovered that
Black-headed gull can catch & eat them in flight.
This bird almost stopped horizontal motion as it swung up to catch
the insect, so the vertical positions of the bird are arbitrary,
but the horizontal positions are approximately right. We were
fortunate that the wing positions of the last 3 images almost fit
together like a jigsaw for a nice compact presentation!
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
Ref: 20141129_df2_20140919_1552_635-638 black headed gull catching crane-fly in flight 3-6 of 8 (top to bottom montage @ 5fps)(r+mb id@768).jpg
Image Taken on 15 Sep 2014
at 15:28 Image of day on 25 Nov 2014
This montage from the same set of originals is at the camera's resolution.
Look carefully to see what we described above.
(r+mb id@576).jpg)
Ref: 20141125_df2_20140915_1528_157-160 black headed gull in eclipse catching fly in flight & swallowing 5fps 2-5 of 9 (detailed montage)(r+mb id@576).jpg
Image Taken on 15 Sep 2014
at 15:28 Image of day on 25 Nov 2014
We noticed that many of the gulls were jinking about in flight,
and wondered why, so spent several hundred frames trying to catch
the behaviour. This one event really surprised us - chasing and
catching a small insect in the tip of it's beak, then opening the
gape and letting the breeze of flight blow it in.
Subsequent photos show that this is not typical - gulls catch crane-flies
and similar in an open beak - perhaps this was a bee that it needed
to subdue first.
Read this montage left to right - that black dot really is the
insect which is in the beak tip in the second and third image and
is in the gape in the last.
(r+mb id@1024).jpg)
Ref: 20141125_df2_20140915_1528_157-160 black headed gull in eclipse catching fly in flight & swallowing 5fps 2-5 of 9 (montage)(r+mb id@1024).jpg
Image Taken on 07 Dec 2015
at 15:00 Image of day on 17 Jan 2016
A Black-Headed Gull in Eclipse flying by (close spaced for detail).
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
Ref: 20160117_df3_20151207_1500_105-107 black headed gull in eclipse in flight 1-3 of 3 (close spaced montage)(r+mb id@768).jpg
Image Taken on 21 Jul 2012
at 15:10 Image of day on 24 Aug 2012
6 days later several hundred Black headed gulls flew over in
about 15 minutes in all stages of moult. This bird with fully
developed head plumage (actually 'chocolate' colour rather than
black) was too busy scratching the side of his beak with his left
foot to notice the photographer. This is just before the foot
reached the beak.
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
Ref: 20120824_df1_20120721_1510_171 black headed gull in flight wiping beak with foot 1 of 5 (crop)(r+mb id@768).jpg
Image Taken on 07 Dec 2015
at 12:58 Image of day on 17 Jan 2016
Fields to our North are being ploughed this year, and flocks of
gulls arrive for the bounty uncovered by the blades. This Black
Headed Gull is moulting his black head back to what will become
the single dots behind the eyes for the Eclipse (winter) plumage
(r+mb id@1024).jpg)
Ref: 20160117_df3_20151207_1258_009-1259_013 black headed gull moulting into eclipse in flight 1-5 of 5 (approx montage)(r+mb id@1024).jpg
Image Taken on 22 Aug 2006
at 20:08 Image of day on 28 Aug 2006
A first sighting for us of what we think is a Female Black
Redstart. We have a more conventional view, but this shows the
glowing orange tail to good advantage.
 in flight(r+mb id@576).jpg)
Ref: 20060828_d3e_20060822_2008_166 fb1 black redstart female (q) in flight(r+mb id@576).jpg
Image Taken on 08 Sep 2021
at 07:29 Image of day on 20 Oct 2021
A Black Backed Gull flying past.
.jpg)
Ref: 20211020_df3_20210908_0729_020 black-backed gull in flight(r+mb id@768).jpg
Image Taken on 29 Nov 2016
at 13:06 Image of day on 09 Jan 2017
The unusually slow progress of the Black-headed Gull against the
wind means that this has to be alternate frames which still
didn't avoid some overlap. The background here is accurate.
 in flight 08+10+12+14+16 of 24 (accurate montage alternate frames)(r+mb id@1024).jpg)
Ref: 20170109_df3_20161129_1306_119-127 black-headed gull (eclipse) in flight 08+10+12+14+16 of 24 (accurate montage alternate frames)(r+mb id@1024).jpg
Image Taken on 29 Nov 2016
at 13:06 Image of day on 09 Jan 2017
This Black-headed Gull is taking off into a strong wind (from the right here).
These first 7 images were mostly a vertical climb we have spread out
horizontally. The background relates to one of the earlier of the frames.
 take-off 01-07 of 24 (horizontally spread montage)(r+mb id@1024).jpg)
Ref: 20170109_df3_20161129_1306_112-118 black-headed gull (eclipse) take-off 01-07 of 24 (horizontally spread montage)(r+mb id@1024).jpg
Image Taken on 22 Sep 2014
at 12:49 Image of day on 30 Nov 2014
The next frames (adding nothing to the action) reveals no fly -
it went in the beak of this Black-headed gull!
(r+mb id@576).jpg)
Ref: 20141130_df2_20140922_1249_619 black-headed gull catching insect in flight 1 of 6 (crop)(r+mb id@576).jpg
Image Taken on 22 Sep 2014
at 12:49 Image of day on 30 Nov 2014
In this montage the fly is still visible just above the left wing of the
middle image of the Black-headed gull and it is visible in the beak of
the bottom frame. For once we actually got the whole thing!
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
Ref: 20141130_df2_20140922_1249_641-643 black-headed gull catching insect in flight 1-3 of 5 (montage)(r+mb id@768).jpg
Image Taken on 13 Sep 2016
at 11:02 Image of day on 31 Oct 2016
Black-headed Gulls (in eclipse so no black head) were swooping about and jinking
in mid-air, obviously catching insects 'on the wing'. This bird has just caught
something which went down the throat in about 300mS.
Read this bottom right moving upwards
(r+mb id@1024).jpg)
Ref: 20161031_df3_20160913_1102_073-075 black-headed gull in eclipse swallowing insect caught in flight 1-3 of 3 (close spaced montage)(r+mb id@1024).jpg
Image Taken on 30 Jun 2015
at 12:34 Image of day on 31 Aug 2015
The air was full of tiny fragments of fluff that allowed us to
accurately position these 4 images - a sort of 'join up the dots'
exercise! We have left in the white specks.
(r+mb id@1024).jpg)
Ref: 20150831_df3_20150630_1234_279-282 black-headed gull in flight 1-4 of 4 (accurate montage)(r+mb id@1024).jpg
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