Soggy Falcons

It was wet, cold (for June) and windy when I ventured out on to the roof of Building 3 with my scope and camera, hoping for a few shots of Esperanza and Skye, who have been spending more time at the front of the nest box of late. It was gray and dreary out-- not really conducive for good picture taking, and the wind blew the scope around quite a bit. I had to raise the ISO setting on my DX6490 to 100, which introduced some digital noise into the images, but gave me an acceptable shutter speed with a wide open aperture (f3.2).

Mariah was perched, oddly enough, on the D in the KODAK sign:

I took that shot with the camera, just to see what kind of conditions I had to work with. Then I set up the scope.

It's weird what you don't see, sometimes. While aiming at Esperanza and Skye in the nestbox, I completely failed to notice young Fulmine poking his head into the frame (at bottom right), until I examined the pictures I had taken:


Here's a closer look at him, directly beneath his sister:



Then it was back to Mariah, wet and windswept. She obliged me by turning around:



I probably took a dozen shots of her before she took off for a short flight, to the accompaniment of squawking eyases. She landed on the southeast corner of the launchpad, and turned her back on me yet again:


My Kowa TSN-664 scope and Nikon Monarch ATB binoculars are sealed against the elements, but not so my camera. I decided I'd had enough of cold rain gusting into my face, so I returned to the warmth and dryness of the Kodak office after only about 30 minutes of watching. With any luck, the weather will improve over the next few days and I'll be able to get some better shots of the eyases before they leave the nestbox area for good.