Southern Hawker

Another glorious day here, with the temperature in the low 20s C and high humidity.  Our daughter Jess and her fiancé James visited for lunch, and we were able to sit outside in t-shirts to eat it.  As it was so warm I used the barbecue to cook dinner, having to stop at one point to race indoors to retrieve my camera when this chap came to visit.

Inevitably he insisted on hovering with his tail towards me, and I had to scoot around the pond in double quick time to be able to grab this shot of him from the side before he decided to hawk elsewhere. One of his legs appears to be damaged as he seemed to be unable to fully retract it, but it is October, and while he's likely to be around for a few more weeks cold weather is definitely going to arrive at some stage.

I took this one using a fairly fast shutter speed as I wanted to try to freeze the wing action.  I realise now that I could probably have done with a little more depth of field as well, as the tips of the wings on either side aren't as sharp as I would have liked them to be.  Sadly, he's not come back to let me try with different settings.

As always with blip, there's more detail if you care to look in large.