Kestrel Pictures

Earlier, I said that it was almost impossible to take an image of a kestrel -- even though I saw so many of them in England.

In the end, I had to wait until I reached Germany, before I managed to take a couple of good photos. Here's one of the better ones.


And here's one of my favourites -- with the kestrel just entering flight. This was actually a setup photo. This kestrel sat in one of three trees for about 5 hours (we saw it earlier in the morning, and when we came back in the evening, it was still there). Throughout that time, it kept flying from tree to tree.

I tried for about half and hour to get a natural picture of it -- but by the time I had inched close to it on one tree --- it would fly to the next tree.

I realized that from Tree A, the kestrel would always fly to Tree B -- so, when he took off from Tree A, I focused on Tree B.

Well -- for the one and only time -- the bird flew to Tree C, bypassing Tree B.

I began to think that that bird had it in for me.

Well, finally, when the bird sat down at one of the trees, I focused on it -- and then got my mum to yell and spook the kestrel -- startled, it started to fly away -- and I got the picture below (after more than 30 minutes of freezing, hard work).

 

The Autobahn

On the subject of the autobahn, here's proof that we were moving too fast to get a good picture of a fox.

(By the way, I wasn't driving -- my dad was.)


At the risk of switching topics (and countries), the autobahn really is an amazing road system. The beauty of the system is not merely the high speeds.

From place to place the autobahn does institute a speed limit (for example, on sharp turns). However, the smazing thing is that the speed limit that they give is exactly what you probably could handle on such a curve -- i.e. the curve was banked to a proper degree, so that such a speed is probably the maximum bearable (for everyone outside of Michael Schumacher).

I wish Canadian highways were so comfortable to drive on. We drove 1400 km in one day on the Autobahn, and still had time to sightsee when we reached our halfway point, before driving on. -- and it took only 8.5 hours of driving total.

(I think the secret is in the banked curves -- curves here in Canada are not banked as much as the ones in Germany.)

Anyway, back to England and Longleat. 

More fauna

I was particularly proud of this picture of a fox, that I took in Algonquin Park. In more than a month in Algonquin Park (not consecutively), this was the only sighting of a fox that I made.


In contrast, here is a picture of a fox (one of over 10 I saw), taken in Germany (near Munich). We saw more than 5 foxes in 3 days of driving around the countryside, looking for them.

Indeed, we even saw foxes just standing next to the autobahn as we drove along (obviously, we were driving too fast to actually take a picture).


I guess the reason you see so many wild animals in Europe (vs. in Canada), is simply that they have been interacting with humans for much longer (1000s of years), in contrast to Canada (a few 100 years).  

Normal British Fauna

Here's an addition to the normal British birds.

British?!

Yes, phesants have been stocked on Nobelmen's estates for centuries, and nowadays, you can see them on the sides of almost every country road in Britain.

Interestingly, I took this photo at Longleat, with the pheasant moving about among some Indian Baboons, and Water Buffalo, in Longleat park.


It is rather odd -- in Canada, pheasants and animals such as Foxes, which have not been hunted for generations are still extemely secretive, and hard to spot.

Yet, in Europe, these same animals -- though (in some areas) still being hunted -- are so used to man, that it is "relatively" easy to catch a good sighting.

No, I did not suddenly change my plans, and head to Mongolia!

Then, how did I get a picture of a bacterian camel?

Well, I headed off to the world's oldest (and probably still one of the largest) drive through Safaris.

Longleat Safari Park is found in the voluminous estate of a modern day British Lord -- the Lord of Bath.

It is extremely incongrous to find yourself surrounded by giraffes, in the middle of 300 year old Oak trees, and normal British fauna.


But the setting is extemely beautiful. 

Bacterian Camel???

 

Returning to the Blog

Sorry for the second major delay in the blog.

Though it seems that Europe is much more well-connected than North America, I haven't found that really to be the case.

Even most roadside hotels back in Canada have some form of internet connectivity that the guests can use. In contrast, in France (and other areas of Europe), even Internet cafes are not easy to find.

In Paris, to give one example, we were staying within a 10 minute walk of the Lourve (i.e. very central). However, there was only 1 internet cafe within a 15 minute walk around us. --- and, to make matters worse, the internet cafe only had French keyboards -- an extreme irritation.

Anyway, that explains some of the reason of why I haven't been able to update my blog.

However, I am back in England now -- which seems much improved versus "the Continent". So, I hope to get a couple more blogs in before I get back to Canada, and I will then finish whatever I haven't finished after I return.

Anyway, onwards!