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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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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!


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.


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.


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).


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.


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


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.


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.


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.


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.


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!


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!


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


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.


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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