Beautiful raptor

I had trouble getting off to sleep last night and then I had a bad dream when I finally did drop off. Consequently, I was still very tired when my alarm went off but I did manage to get myself off to the pet fair at the time that I'd intended. The tiredness was temporarily forgotten though when I arrived at the fair and I spent a total of 8 very enjoyable hours there.

The highlights of my visit to the fair were the wonderful performance of a group of riders and their horses which I loved so much that I watched it twice, the stand of 'SOS Reptiel' where I had my picture taken with not only a snake but also a spider, and finally the outdoor demonstration of raptors being flown.

I had taken my Ixus camera and two fully charged batteries with me but, as I'd feared, these two batteries didn't last long enough and they had both gone flat by 4pm. Fortunately I'd also decided to take my old compact Nikon with me. It has a broken battery catch but it can still be used as a back up camera if the battery can be held in place. It's a very fiddly job though so I'm getting another spare battery for the Ixus as it does take better photos than the Nikon.

When I got home I could barely believe it that I'd taken just over 550 photos! Not all of them are very good though so several of them will definitely get deleted when I've found the courage to sort through them properly. I feel too exhausted to that right now though and have only quickly looked for a shot that I could blip today. I decided to choose this photo of a young White-tailed Eagle which has provided great entertainment to the group of people who were so brave to stand in the cold and the wind for 45 minutes to watch it and the other birds that were being flown.

I hope I'll be able to take a photo of the two pictures of me holding the snake and the spider so I can blip them.