While cruising there are many skills that you learn. One of the more challenging is taking quality (in focus) photographs from a rocking boat. This week we had the pleasure of spending some time with falcons on the island of Milos, Greece. So I thought is a good time to practice the telephoto on a rocking boat with the subject a fast moving high altitude object. Practice eventually will lead to perfection I am told.

I was surprised to see the Eleonora’s Falcon nesting and feed young so late in the summer. It turns out they wait until later in the summer, or early autumn so they can feed on smaller migratory birds. The Eleonora’s Falcon is a graceful and aerobatic bird that migrates 9000km from the Mediterranean to Madagascar in southern Africa. According to Wikipedia two thirds of the world population of Eleonora’s Falcon breeds in the Grecian Islands.

Interestingly, these falcons have been shown to actually imprison live smaller birds while alive in small crevices for later consumption.  They remove the tail and wing feathers so the prisoner’s cannot escape. Picture of bird prisoner and other details here. Never heard of that before: a bird prison with a Falcon guard.