Soaring

Another very dark and wet day, but that's January for you in this part of the world :-). After lunch the rain seemed to have stopped for a bit, so I went out to see if I could find something to photograph.  I walked up the hill to the area with the buzzards, and did manage to locate one, although it was resolutely sitting on one of the lower (and I suspect drier) branches of a tree some way away and showed no signs of wanting to venture out to keep this blipper amused.

I was beginning to think that I would have to make do with a grey squirrel, when I spotted the red kite.  I know that red kites are quite common in many areas of the UK, but we don't normally see them locally. The wind was broadly in the right direction so I trotted up the road, as quickly as I could wearing walking boots and carrying a camera and long lens, in the hope that I might get lucky.  Eventually I stopped behind a hedge and prayed that the bird would get reasonably close, and my patience was rewarded, today's blip is the end result. 

It is definitely better seen large.