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Birds, Insects & Bats in flight (outdoors) Page 46
Image Taken on 17 Jun 2008
at 16:29 Image of day on 30 Jun 2008
Skylarks seem to spend some their time in flight with
wings closed. Do wish we could include the liquid song, but even
if we recorded it the noise from the camera would drown it out.
.jpg)
Ref: 20080630_dc1_20080617_1629_442 skylark in flight with wings almost closed(r+mb id@576).jpg
Image Taken on 09 Apr 2017
at 10:22 Image of day on 31 May 2017
Skylarks ascending are reasonably predictable, but descents are erratic,
very hard to follow, and the focus changes very fast. So here we were lucky
(= lots of tries) to get this bird aerobraking to land in the corn crop.
(r+mb id@432).jpg)
Ref: 20170531_df3_20170409_1022_061-063 skylark landing in corn crop 1-3 of 4 (accurate montage @ 7fps)(r+mb id@432).jpg
Image Taken on 07 Jun 2011
at 10:22 Image of day on 10 Jul 2011
This skylark seem to have a nest about 300m away in the (still uncut but very
sparse) meadow to our east and we got an atypically good view of the top of the wing.
Try to imagine the liquid silver song pouring from that open beak.
 01 of 16 (crop)(r+mb id@432).jpg)
Ref: 20110710_df1_20110607_1022_039 skylark singing in flight (selected) 01 of 16 (crop)(r+mb id@432).jpg
Image Taken on 07 Jun 2011
at 10:22 Image of day on 10 Jul 2011
About 1 second of 'The Lark Ascending'.
The spacing and slope is reconstructed from memory and probably
too close - see later.
 09-14 of 16 (sequential impression montage @ 7fps)(r+mb id@768).jpg)
Ref: 20110710_df1_20110607_1022_060-065 skylark singing in flight (selected) 09-14 of 16 (sequential impression montage @ 7fps)(r+mb id@768).jpg
Image Taken on 16 Mar 2014
at 09:57 Image of day on 24 Apr 2014
This Skylark was starting his ascent, singing his little heart out.
This is an accurate montage at about 4fps (so this is less than a second).
(r+mb id@1024).jpg)
Ref: 20140424_df2_20140316_0957_346-349 skylark singing in flight 1-4 of 4 (accurate montage @ about 4fps)(r+mb id@1024).jpg
Image Taken on 08 Jun 2011
at 16:33 Image of day on 10 Jul 2011
And then he briefly got quite close to us overhead.
(r+mb id@432).jpg)
Ref: 20110710_df1_20110608_1633_602 skylark singing in flight 3 of 7 (crop @432)(r+mb id@432).jpg
Image Taken on 08 Jun 2011
at 15:13 Image of day on 10 Jul 2011
Next day some soft cumulus clouds gave us reference points to
accurately space the images but were sparse enough not to flare
out the images. So this is about half a second of 'flight' -
skylarks seem to spend about half their time singing with wings
firmly closed.
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
Ref: 20110710_df1_20110608_1513_296-298+1414_299 skylark singing in flight 3-6 of 8 (accurate montage @ 7fps)(r+mb id@768).jpg
Image Taken on 17 Apr 2012
at 10:13 Image of day on 11 May 2012
Over a corn crop in an adjacent field, this Skylark waves it's head about to direct the sound,
creating the characteristic rise and fall in volume. Read left to right moving down -
bottom right he stopped singing and started his dive to ground.
 1-9 of 9 (montage)(r+mb id@768).jpg)
Ref: 20120511_df1_20120417_1013_055-118 skylark singing in flight turning head to direct sound (selected) 1-9 of 9 (montage)(r+mb id@768).jpg
Image Taken on 09 Mar 2014
at 09:04 Image of day on 18 Apr 2014
One pair of Skylarks spent a minute or two fluttering round each
other over the hedge. It was all so quick and random we can't
find a suitable montage to express it, so here is a moment of the
birds facing each other.
The 'adjusted' aspect was 'raising' the hedge a bit to provide some context.
(r+mb id@576).jpg)
Ref: 20140418_df2_20140309_0904_387 2 skylarks fluttering around each other over hedge 07 of 33 (adjusted crop)(r+mb id@576).jpg
Image Taken on 05 Aug 2014
at 05:58 Image of day on 16 Oct 2014
There are now many sites where we find scattered remains of snail
shells broken on slabs of stone, drain covers and corrugated
iron. We must have quite a few young Song Thrushes - and possibly
now not so many slugs and snails!
.jpg)
Ref: 20141016_e64_20140805_0558_052_fb2 song thrush juvenile landing on log(r+mb id@576).jpg
Image Taken on 05 Sep 2018
at 14:17 Image of day on 29 Oct 2018
4 images of a female Southern Hawker Dragonfly in this pic, if you
can only find them spread across the confusing ground flying right to left.
(r+mb id@1024).jpg)
Ref: 20181029_df3_20180905_1417_113-116 southern hawker dragonfly female in flight 1-4 of 4 (accurate montage @7fps)(r+mb id@1024).jpg
Image Taken on 05 Sep 2018
at 14:17 Image of day on 29 Oct 2018
This is a detail of the last image in the montage (far left).
The male of the Southern Hawker Dragonfly is our most commonly seen
large Hawker, but we don't often see the females like this one except when
depositing eggs at the edge of a pond, so a pleasing moment.
(r+mb id@576).jpg)
Ref: 20181029_df3_20180905_1417_116 southern hawker dragonfly female in flight 4 of 4 (crop)(r+mb id@576).jpg
Image Taken on 23 Aug 2012
at 12:16 Image of day on 06 Oct 2012
This female Southern Hawker dragonfly was flying into a strong wind
allowing an unusual 3 images in succession to be in reasonable
focus. You can see from the difficulty of seeing the wings
against complex background the reason we use a simple 'blue sky'
background in the indoor 'flight tunnel'
(r+mb id@1024).jpg)
Ref: 20121006_df1_20120823_1216_060-062 southern hawker dragonfly female in flight @ 7fps 1-3 of 3 (horizontal spread montage)(r+mb id@1024).jpg
Image Taken on 05 Sep 2018
at 14:20 Image of day on 29 Oct 2018
Here our female Southern Hawker Dragonfly shows that her interest is hunting,
here holding the remains of some food item in her legs and her mandibles do their
thing.
The males of this species seem to spend far longer 'on the wing' than the
females in order to guard their territory and be on the lookout for females.
(r+mb id@432).jpg)
Ref: 20181029_df3_20180905_1420_167 southern hawker dragonfly female in flight holding prey to mouth 2 of 4 (crop)(r+mb id@432).jpg
Image Taken on 08 Aug 2009
at 12:45 Image of day on 22 Sep 2009
Repeated attempts at getting a good high speed
dragonfly-in-flight sequence got this unexpected moment of
interest. The dragonfly spent a moment hovering and in the reaction
time to press the shutter to store the last 1 second it turned
round on the spot and flew back towards the camera (and then even
more out of focus). The entire time for the montage shown was
0.166 second.
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
Ref: 20090922_cf1_20090808_1245_907+913+917+919 southern hawker dragonfly hover & sudden turning 60fps 13+19+21+23 of 27 (montage)(r+mb id@768).jpg
Image Taken on 04 Oct 2016
at 15:08 Image of day on 19 Nov 2016
A hovering Southern Hawker Dragonfly showing us the crazy wing positions it uses
to resist the effects of the wind and control it's position.
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
Ref: 20161119_df3_20161004_1508_062-065 southern hawker dragonfly hovering 1-4 of 5 (montage)(r+mb id@768).jpg
Image Taken on 09 Aug 2014
at 15:55 Image of day on 20 Oct 2014
The Southern Hawker Dragonfly making another quick turn - all this in half a second.
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
Ref: 20141020_df2_20140809_1555_430-433 southern hawker dragonfly in flight turning & flying back 01-04 of 11 (montage @ 7fps)(r+mb id@768).jpg
Image Taken on 09 Aug 2014
at 15:54 Image of day on 20 Oct 2014
A somewhat atypical Southern Hawker Dragonfly that was patrolling
this pond from mostly in the shade, turning as each end of his
flight took him out into the sunshine. Except in very hot weather
(which this wasn't) dragonflies here normally stick to the sunny
patches. This first is 1 second of flight. The visual impression of
'instant' change of direction reflects the reality!
(r+mb id@1024).jpg)
Ref: 20141020_df2_20140809_1554_382-386+388-390 southern hawker dragonfly in flight turning & flying back 1-5+7-9 of 9 (approx montage)(r+mb id@1024).jpg
Image Taken on 25 Aug 2013
at 12:37 Image of day on 15 Oct 2013
This Souther Hawker Dragonfly seems to be gliding on the rear wings while
flapping the front pair.
This image is the top right image in the following montage.
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
Ref: 20131015_a77_20130825_1237_347 southern hawker dragonfly male 90 degree turn in flight 1 of 4 (crop)(r+mb id@768).jpg
Image Taken on 25 Aug 2013
at 12:37 Image of day on 15 Oct 2013
This was an unusual moment to photograph - the legs are down even
though it had flown non-stop for at least several seconds. At 4 fps the
insect was flying towards the camera and made a right angled turn
with little forward motion (all in 250mS) and then accelerated to the left.
Do the legs change the aerodynamics to improve the turn?
Had it spotted something to eat? Dragonflies sometimes predate small butterflies, catching
them in flight.
(r+mb id@576).jpg)
Ref: 20131015_a77_20130825_1237_347-350 southern hawker dragonfly male 90 degree turn in flight 1-4 of 4 (4 fps montage lower 3 accurate)(r+mb id@576).jpg
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