Surprise Fly-by

Location, Weston Park, Staffordshire/Shropshire border.

I'd been invited up to Weston Park to have a look at one of my images, recently enlarged and framed for new tenant's of offices in the granary, so I combined the visit with an early morning walk.

After capturing some landscapes around sunrise I headed over to the deer enclosure to see whether I could get any shots for the park.  They have very few images of the deer (I'm not surprised, they are very wary of humans), so I donned the camouflage and approached from the Shrewsbury Walk area.  Imagine someone like Mr Bean, trying to be stealthy, flitting from tree to tree!  I was actually very lucky as a group of young deer were foraging close to the walk and I was able to approach unnoticed.  I've added an image in extras, but I was absolutely chuffed to catch this buzzard flying by only just above my head.  If only the background had been better.

The capture was more down to luck than experience.  I'd pushed up the ISO on the camera just before it flew past, mainly because I realised that my shutter speed was too low for the deer.  I was at maximum aperture, using the 200-500mm lens with a 1.4x converter.  Of the 10 images I managed to crack off while it flew through my view this was the only one close to good focus.  Still, always chuffed to get a bird in flight.