SparrowhawkCam

I have been using trail cameras to get different pictures of the sparrowhawk.  In the picture below, taken through the window, he is sat in front of a Bushnell NatureView Cam HDMax (L) and a Wingscapes BirdCam Pro (R). Although both have close-focus capabilities, in this instance he was too close to them and wouldn't fit in the frame so I had to move the cameras back.

As always, one of the main difficulties with trail cameras is anticipating where the subject will be.  In fact this sparrowhawk is reasonably predictable and is easier than some other subjects.  There are videos farther below but here are a couple of frame grabs to show the positioning wasn't far out once the cameras had been moved back.  The first two photos are in artificial light (see below) and the third in natural light.

In this example he is a bit too close and so slightly out of focus.

The Wingscapes BirdCam Pro is an interesting camera.  It has an LED light source and I have found it isn't much use for nighttime still photos because the shutter speed is too slow or the flash is too long and so most of the photos are blurred.  Video, however, is a different matter.  Most trail cameras use infrared for night time video and record black and white images but this one uses white light for colour video.  Although the sparrowhawk doesn't hunt in the dark, he is here first thing in the morning and late into the afternoon and sits in a very dark corner of the kitchen garden in deep shade, making the photography quite a challenge.  The Wingscapes camera switches its light on for 30s at a time to record video and the sparrowhawk doesn't react at all.  If the light comes on while I am watching him it also gives me the opportunity of taking photos through the window with better light.  Here is an example.  This is the photo through the window without extra lighting.  The ISO is 2500 so it quite a grainy picture.

Moments later the light comes back on.  Although the ISO only drops to 2000 the lighting is better.

You can see from this series that the sparrowhawk isn't at all concerned by the light coming on and off.

And here are a few example of the trail camera video.  In the first is something I haven't captured before.  The blur on the very first frame is the sparrowhawk taking off on a strike (it is a pity it didn't start recording one second earlier).  Two seconds later he lands with his prize.  In this recording and the next two the camera has its LED lights switched on.

Here is one of several recorded while he was eating.  You can hear the alarm calls from the other small birds still in the bush above the camera.

Here he has just finished and is wiping the feathers and blood from his beak.

In this last video the general light has improved so the camera records without additional lighting.  Despite having just eaten one bird, he spots another potential victim and sets off after it.  I don't know whether he caught it.

Having seen that the sparrowhawk doesn't react at all to the bright LED light from the trail camera I am tempted to try other addition lighting for my conventional photography.  If I make any progress with it I'll post the photos here.