Not-so-tiny wings

We took the kids, last weekend, to the Delaplane Strawberry Festival, which was a lot of fun.  We got to try stilts, took a hay-ride, the kids rode ponies, we saw blacksmiths, saw some farm animals, and ate some good food.

But the highlight of the day for me, was that the Raptor Conservancy of Virginia was there with a hawk (see above), a mixed-breed falcon, a barn owl, and a kestrel.  I hadn't brought lenses in anticipation of this; I'd brought a mid-range zoom and my macro lens.  Happily, my macro is a 150mm, so that did a pretty good job with the birds (not perfect, because it didn't focus as fast as I would have liked, but not bad), taking all the pictures linked (I was particularly happy with the kestrel shots).

As something unexpected, this was very cool.  I wish I'd had a 300mm f/2.8 lens, though.  Those are amazing lenses, and would have been very good for this, I think (a little closer, a little sharper, and blazingly fast focus).  The only concern would be that the ropes around the birds might have gotten in the way with the longer lens.  Maybe I can arrange it another time; need to find out where else the conservancy will be appearing.

Anyway, we had a great time at the festival.  It would have been nice if we could have gone Saturday, instead of Sunday, as they supposedly had antique cars that day, but that wasn't a big deal.