Project 365 - Day 167 - Turkey Vulture

Father's day picnic at Kelso today.  It's tradition on my wife's side, the whole family gets together at least this one time every year.  It was looking pretty crappy for most of the morning, but then we got word from family that lives in Milton that it was clearing up so we packed up the van and off we went.

We were a little late starting, but most of the family and in-laws of the family made it out.  It was a great day.  The annual soccer match broke out once again, and once again the younger kids showcased their moves and showed the older generation how it's done.  It was great weather and great fun with great company.

So the shot of the day is actually one that I have been wanting to get long before I got my long lens.  It's a turkey vulture that was flying around for the better part of the day.  There were 7 of these guys at one time, all circling an area beside our picnic area.  They weren't posing much of a threat to us, but man are they ever cool when they fly.

This is shot with my Sigma 70-200 at 185mm.  ISO is 800 and the shutter is 1/2000 at f/6.3.  I should have lowered the ISO, but I wanted to make sure the shutter was fast enough to stop the action.  You can see the bird's red head in this shot.  I was almost directly under the bird during this path.

I cropped this shot for content.  The sky was that colour and it was that clear.

Beauty day.