Birdworld Grey Crested Crane

After last week's jaunt to the Andover Hawk Conservancy, this weekend saw us both in a 'lets take more photos of birds' mood. Given that the Hawk Conservancy had recently been in the news with its Owl that won't fly, we thought we'd go back there when it was less likely to be seriously crowded, and went for BirdWorld just outside Farnham in Hampshire instead.

I like BirdWorld; there's a great deal of variety in the birds they keep there, but their one problem is that so many have to be kept in cages which restricts what you can do with a camera. I tend to open up the aperture and hope they're far enough away from the cage that you throw the wires out of focus, but the shots always loose something.

Fortunately they also have enclosures with hides where cage wires aren't a problem. This Grey Crested Crane was in one such enclosure. After taking this image, a guy came up to me to see what I could see through a 400mm lens. He seemed rather impressed, although I strongly suspect his wife will be forever cursing my name :-D