Time to share a few of our feathered beauties in this week's SMAP: this week, the theme is a bird you see more often.
Well, I can fit a ton of birds in this category; I have a small green area near where I live, and small (and not so small) birds are fortunatelly pretty frequent. Some of them though, are hard to capture on camera. And the beautiful kestrel chosen as the opening photo is the perfect example of one of those species: you see them very often, but normally darting from one place to another. And not that long ago, I had the chance of contemplating them standing still!
I was driving with friends to a birdwatching center, when we spotted her perching in one of the poles near the dirt road.
One of the good things of being in a car is that normally, since they don't associate the human presence, the allow us to get way closer than if we were walking; and that's exactly what happened here.
She stared right at us, as the car came to a halt, but continued to pose for the camera, switching sides every now and then.
Kestrels are the most common hawks we can find in Portugal. They're easy to spot, since one of their particularities is hovering on the same place in mid air, flapping its wings, scouting the grounds for prey.
Males and females can be easily distinguished if near, since males have a grey head and tail, contrasting with the brownish-red of the females. No doubts about the sex here!
It's such a joy to be able to see birds of prey standing still. During this ride, we found quite a few more, perching in similar locations. I'm guessing the fields ahead are full of hawk snacks.
After a few moments, it seemed she was getting tired of being observed andwas getting ready to leave, but after this photo she relaxed for a few more moments, before gliding away.
I'm planning another trip to the same spot in the coming weeks, I wonder If I'll be able to see kestrels again this close; and wouldn't mind seeing a male too, since it was an all-female observation this time.
Whatever gender appears, I'm cool with it. Fingers crossed!
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