MotherSoup

… or: Revenge of the Professional Photographer

Yesterday I squawked on about how having a digital camera means that you can often supresede the services of a professional photographer… then within hours I was handed a fine example of what nonense that can sometimes be.

Mid afternoon, I walked into a room at the back of the house to see a puff of feathers and what seemed like an enormous bird of prey half-flying, half-dragging a collared dove a few feet across the lawn. It then proceeded to lunch on the pigey-bird, feathers flying everywhere. All just a few metres from where I was standing and gawping through a large picture window.

An extraordinary sight in a narrow, overgrown garden, bounded by residential properties, on a bus route, a few doors from a little supermarket! I so wanted to share it with someone, but there was just me, and a pre-schooler too young to be interested. An hour later and there would have been school-age Offspring, who would have been hugely interested. My neighbour came out to rattle her wheelie-bin and check her washing, but she disappeared back inside before she could disturb the bird or before I could semaphore my excitement.

Through the binoculars - luckily to hand - I could literally count the feathers: it was a buzzard - not that uncommon a bird, but a rare sight from your dining table!

Off to get my friendly digital camera. Not much zoom, but the bird was so close - surely it was worth trying to take a shot? The nature photographers make it look so easy…

Well - take a look. What a magnificent piece of work. I shall, of course by entering it for numerous awards - not!