Hares, Kestrels but no owls...

I've been a bit quiet on the ol' photography front but did managed to have a productive weekend last week. I met up with a good friend on mine to try and photograph the Short-eared Owls at Aust but they only showed once in the three hours we were there and they were to far away for any shots. But the Kestrel did put on a good display and gave us some good opportunities to photograph her. The weather was perfect and the sky perfectly blue.

After Aust we moved on into the Cotswolds to a great location for Hares. Ben had been there before and wanted to show me around the place. The area was typical arable farming landscape and ideal for the UK's fastest mammal with the shelter of woodland on the edge of the fields. We walked around the woodland first in search of Roe Deer but they were nowhere to be seen. We headed out to the fields and walked along the hedgerows hoping to see the Hares. The light was stunning and a Robin followed us along the Cotswold stone wall so I felt obliged to take a photo in the gorgeous Autumn sunshine. 

As the light started to fade we began to loose hope on seeing the Hares and headed back to the car. The sun had now set but as we walked along the woodland edge a Hare suddenly ran along the field in front of us! We crept up on it and found another two in the distance. One hadn't noticed us and we slowly walked closer to try and get a closer shot. It was great to be able get so close to these amazing animals. We had a few minutes with it and managed a few (noisy!) shots which I was very pleased with in the end. 

The Hare eventually followed the rest of his group and we headed back to the car much happier! We have planned to focus purely on the Hares next March and I'm pretty sure we're going to get some cracking results! I can't wait, 2013 is looking a good year for photography projects.