Hoopoe in Flight

Today we again had a chance to photograph migrating birds near Karvarna where we are staying. They were again mainly falcons and other raptors. But at one point this Hoopoe flew straight across in front of us, and this was the best of the shots I got. Another excellent bird of the day was a male Red-breasted Flycatcher (it's a life bird for us, though we had seen a female a couple of days ago; we had very good views, though too brief to photograph.

The Hoopoe is the national bird of Israel, and is always fun to see. It is most striking when it raises its vivid crest, but it normally does that only for an instant after landing, and I have yet to photograph that.