Bellymack Farm, Galloway.

13th February 2010

The weather was forcast for bright conditions so we headed down to the Galloway Forest park area between Ayr and Castle Douglas. This is a beautiful area of lochs and rolling hills, with much forest areas too. We wanted to check out the area that is called the Red Kite Trail. There is Bellymack Farm in the area that daily feeds a number of Red Kites. We had been to the feeding station in Wales at Gigrin Farm but not this one. On the way we saw a number of Buzzards and a few Kites flying high. We spotted a juvenile Buzzard in a tree as we drove past. Stopping the car I reversed and was able to observe this fine bird on a lovely moss clad tree branch. He just looked at us a I lowered the car window so as to rest the lens on the glass.

Getting to the farm the clouds started to gather and at the time of 2pm when the scraps of food are laid out in the field the light was quite poor. Having to shoot a ISO 640, with 1/400sec shutter speed, f5.6 aperture, nearly all of the shots where dull and out of focus. Sadly nearly all of the birds had been tagged on both wings and this showed up on the photos. The wind picked up and the possibility of getting anything good seemed to be vanishing.

Just then the sun peered out through a gap in the clouds and provided a whole new canvas to capture something half decent. I adjusted the ISO down to 400, and opened the aperture to f6.3.

The birds are truly masters in acrobatics. They would play with each other swirling around, even passing meat to each other. The sun stayed out about 5 mins and then we knew that was it. Frozen we headed back to the car to drive home. These are two of the best images....hope you like?