Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2011/11/28

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Subject: [Leica] IMG: no beauty contest winner here...
From: wildlightphoto at earthlink.net (Doug Herr)
Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2011 17:51:17 -0800 (GMT-08:00)

The Turkey Vulture isn't one of our prettiest birds, and its eating habits 
(not shown) make most of us squeamish.  It's a very widespread species, most 
often seen soaring overhead with a teetering dihedral.

Despite the huge amount of time this species spends in the air, it doesn't 
have strong flight muscles depending instead on updrafts such as ridge lift 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ridge_lift) and thermals 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermals) to remain aloft.

For the last several mornings California's Central Valley has been socked in 
with dense fog; this and the still air have for all practical purposes 
"grounded" the vultures.  They can take flight from the ground but their 
weak flight muscles limit their un-aided flight to a few hundred meters at 
most so instead of fighting gravity they'd rather wait for the fog to clear 
and thermals to start.

http://www.wildlightphoto.com/birds/cathartidae/tuvult03.html

Technical stuff: R8/DMR, 280mm f/4 APO, shoulder stock, monopod & tree 
trunk.  Slight horizontal crop.  All comments welcome.

Doug Herr
Birdman of Sacramento
http://www.wildlightphoto.com




Replies: Reply from jhnichols at lighttube.net (Jim Nichols) ([Leica] IMG: no beauty contest winner here...)
Reply from kcarney1 at cox.net (Ken Carney) ([Leica] IMG: no beauty contest winner here...)
Reply from quantran101 at gmail.com (Quan Tran) ([Leica] IMG: no beauty contest winner here...)
Reply from richard at richardmanphoto.com (Richard Man) ([Leica] IMG: no beauty contest winner here...)
Reply from rgacpa at gmail.com (Robert Adler) ([Leica] IMG: no beauty contest winner here...)