As I was looking out the window New Years morning admiring the frozen landscape and iced over trees, I caught a glimpse of a large bird soaring into a nearby pine tree.
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Even though it was a very chilly 7 degrees Fahrenheit, I rushed to grab my camera and telephoto lens to see if I could grab a few shots. I knew there was a chance that by the time I applied enough clothing to keep myself warm and got the camera ready to shoot that he well could be gone from the top of the tree.
Luckily he was still there and I maneuvered myself around to try to find the best angle to shoot from. The cold was taking its toll on me so I settled on an area with a fairly unobstructed view of the bird and began to start snapping some pics. Unfortunately it was not as close as I would have liked but I was able to get a few decent zoomed in shots.
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I'm no bird expert but I believe this to be a Peregrine Falcon but I welcome any one's comment that might know better. 😀
While I was freezing and ready to get back inside...
He seemed to be quite content on his his high perch. 😀
Normally this would have been the end of my tale but a couple of hours later I happened to look up in the same tree and there he was. So again I grabbed my camera and took a couple more shots, this time from a little closer but somewhat obstructed.
So I can only assume he took a little nap. It was up to a blistering 12 degrees by now but as you can see some of the ice on the pine needles has melted. It was a bright blue sky, sunshine day, so I imagine up there in the direct sunlight it was probably quite a bit warmer.
And one last shot. I threw this one in because you can see some of the little ice flakes that were floating around. Probably coming out of the trees but it was kind of weird to see "snowfall" on a cloudless day.
Please feel free to make comments or ask me any questions about this post.
Photos taken by me, @oldmans, with a Nikon D3300 and some Lightroom post processing.
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Thanks for looking and enjoy your day!