After photographing the 1s male red footed falcon in bedfordshire i wanted to try to get some shots of a female red footed'. With so many in the country i headed off to Fen Drayton in Cambridgeshire to try my luck there. On arrival another birder said he had not seen the bird this morning in its usual perching spot. But it was still early and whilst looking i tried to get some shots of swifts flying overhead. 
This proved no easy task so after what appeared to be a few half decent images on the camera i gave up and headed to where the red footed had been frequenting. As i approached this certain dead tree there perched up near the top was a stunning female red footed falcon. I couldn't believe my luck and so i set up and took some images. The weather wasn't too bad first off but then the clouds drew overhead and put a damper on the colours of this bird.
But i kept firing away in between breaks in the sky and the falcon only twice moved to catch what appeared to be a damselfly before returning to the tree. As the temperature rose the bird then flew off and hunted insects over the lakes adjacent. After a while it returned only to resume hunting a short time later. It then stayed over elney lake happily feeding for some time, my last views were of it flying overhead towards another lake. 
What an stunning bird and a total contrast to the male, and along with the accompaniment of the sedge warbler next to me and other birds it turned out a cracking day and well worth the headache of sorting through 13GB of images.
