American Kestrel, Bosque del Apache NWR, Socorro NM

Early in the Festival of the Cranes at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, my friend and colleague Rich Moncrief, who was working the observation decks in the early morning, got some crackerjack pics of an American Kestrel in great light. I was sooo envious, as the Kestrel is among my favorite North American birds (and photo envy is one of my few remaining faults :). The Kestrel. the smallest of our North American falcons, might even be tied for first with the Green Kingfisher, the smallest of our Kingfishers. There were a lot of Kestrels on the refuge this year, and, of course, I kept an eye out for them. I had several photo ops, and took a lot of frames, but nothing to compare to Rich’s shots. On Friday morning, Sarah (my daughter) as with me for an early round of the tour loops, and she made it her mission to find Kestrels. This one was our second, near the end of our round. We had just photographed another down the road, but we stopped to hike back to the photo blind to see if there were ducks behind it. No. On our way back to the car, this Kestrel flew up into trees along the tail. The light could not have been better, and I pushed the Nikon P900 out into Perfect Image Zoom to fill the frame. Not a perfect shot but enough to cure my photo envy!

Nikon P900 at just under 4000mm equivalent field of view. Handheld at 1/800th @ ISO 100 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.