My first sight of a Square-tailed Kite came last week as a bolt out of the blue. I was walking down a headland bush track on NSWs south coast when the kite dropped suddenly to strike at a small bird on a banksia about 10 metres in front. I hastily changed the camera to “Bird In Flight” preset and pointed at the bird. The result was to capture the strike and then it’s flight out through three to five metre scrub. Most importantly it confirmed identification as a first Square-tailed Kite.

My “Bird In Flight” preset set on the Canon 7 D II camera is; a speed of one two thousandth of a second, autofocus on the five central points, automatic adjustment of exposure and a plus one stop exposure compensation. The exposure compensation set for shots against a cloudy sky resulted in overexposed photos here because of the darker bush background but they were adequate to relive the drama of the situation.