# Sparrow Hawk vs. Dove



## Viper28 (Dec 20, 2013)

I was sitting in my watching TV. We have a couple of bird feeders close to the patio windows which we always keep topped up. Nothing special on them, just a common dove minding its own…. Then it was a cloud of feathers:






















Pays to know where your camera gear is!


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## Eldar (Dec 20, 2013)

Great images. Would have been a pity to find your camera with a a 16-35mm lens and a drained battery


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## Valvebounce (Dec 21, 2013)

Hi Viper,
Lovely pictures of nature at work, very humerous description! 
Hate to ask but did anyone tell the hawk it has a little something stuck in the corner of its mouth! ;D

Cheers Graham.


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## Rienzphotoz (Jan 17, 2014)

Eldar said:


> Great images. Would have been a pity to find your camera with a a 16-35mm lens and a drained battery


Did you read my mind? ;D ... my bro-in-law has lots of fruit trees in his backyard with full of fruit in Melbourne, Australia, and lots of birds come to pick on those fruit throughout the day. Anyway, during my vacation a couple of weeks ago, I stayed at his place for a few days. One day my bro-in-law calls me to the kitchen window (facing the backyard) to show a beautiful King Parakeet perched on one of the branches, providing for a fantastic photo opportunity. So, I ran and grabbed my camera bag from the bedroom, pull out the camera to find it mounted with a 16-35mm ... so I pull out the 70-200, unmount the 16-35, mount the 70-200, change the settings point it at the bird and the battery was totally drained, so I insert a freshly charged battery and the camera says "no card" inside ... by this time, I was getting really upset with myself, so I rush back again into the bedroom to pull out the CF & SD cards in the card reader (which I had planned on using to download the images to my laptop) ... I come back again to the kitchen window, with the CF card properly inserted into the camera, raise the camera to the bird who was still posing for me ... only to find the [email protected]%@ing CF & the SD card full ... so I go back and get another CF & SD card, point the camera towards the bird, only to find it flying away ... I was so pi$$ed off with myself that morning. :-[


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## Rienzphotoz (Jan 17, 2014)

Hi Viper ... AWESOME series of images. Good for you for being prepared. Unlike me :-[


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## Quasimodo (Jan 17, 2014)

Great shots and interesting PoV.


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## Northstar (Jan 17, 2014)

Viper28 said:


> I was sitting in my watching TV. We have a couple of bird feeders close to the patio windows which we always keep topped up. Nothing special on them, just a common dove minding its own…. Then it was a cloud of feathers:
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What a great set of images...nicely done!


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## Northstar (Jan 17, 2014)

Rienzphotoz said:


> Eldar said:
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> > Great images. Would have been a pity to find your camera with a a 16-35mm lens and a drained battery
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Lol...thanks for the laugh...good story!


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## Eldar (Jan 17, 2014)

Rienzphotoz said:


> Eldar said:
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> > Great images. Would have been a pity to find your camera with a a 16-35mm lens and a drained battery
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Good story  Mine is a bit shorter, but same consequence. I got a distant tail picture of a running arctic fox who had been just outside my tent, feeding on the leftovers in me storm kitchen from the night before. That was the first time I had seen one in the wild and they are veeeery rare.


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## Albi86 (Jan 17, 2014)

Great set! Mind to share which lens you used?


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## Quasimodo (Jan 17, 2014)

Eldar said:


> Rienzphotoz said:
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While my fox was a regular fox, and not an artic one that happen to walk past my parents in law´s house in Åsane, Bergen, Norway. They have lived there for more than 30 years, and never seen a fox. The night before I had been shooting pictures of the fjord with a tripod, f 16, and the in-built delayed shutter..... It still irritates me, and it is several years ago


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## Rienzphotoz (Jan 17, 2014)

Quasimodo said:


> Eldar said:
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This sort of thing happens to me many times (as recently as a week ago) ... trying to press the shutter button for a quick action photo, only to find that I had left the bloody camera on 10 second self-timer mode from the previous session


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## Viper28 (Jan 17, 2014)

Albi86 said:


> Great set! Mind to share which lens you used?



Thanks, Canon 7D + 300/2.8L + 1.4x TC


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## Quasimodo (Jan 17, 2014)

Rienzphotoz said:


> Quasimodo said:
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LOL! Afterwards I always try to check while picking up the camera. It would be nice to have an optional preprogrammet reset function (AV, widest aperture on a given lens, and autoiso).


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## Don Haines (Jan 18, 2014)

Rienzphotoz said:


> Quasimodo said:
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Last weekend..... Just settling into my bird-blind in the yard and a pair of pine grosbeaks land on the feeder... check ISO, check shutter speed, check Fstop, and press shutter.... followed by ten seconds of flashing orange light and BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! as the birds flew away..


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## cellomaster27 (Jan 18, 2014)

HAHAHAHA literally laughed all the way through the page.. Can totally relate to those experiences. Hate it but it happens.  

I really really really like the last photo... those eyes!! Thanks for sharing!


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## Famateur (Jan 18, 2014)

Don Haines said:


> Rienzphotoz said:
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LOL! I wish I could say that never happened to me...today.


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## Valvebounce (Jan 25, 2014)

Hi Don.
Isn't that BEEP,BEEP,BEEP! Just a soul destroying noise to hear when, you press the shutter release, anyone timed whether they can kill the shutter release by selecting the menu to change the drive mode faster than riding out the timer? That's what I usually end up doing, yes it has happened to me far too many times! Along with pretty much all the other faux pas listed here. :-[

Cheers Graham.



Don Haines said:


> Last weekend..... Just settling into my bird-blind in the yard and a pair of pine grosbeaks land on the feeder... check ISO, check shutter speed, check Fstop, and press shutter.... followed by ten seconds of flashing orange light and BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! as the birds flew away..


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