The weather around here has been perfect lately for large birds, especially birds of prey, to soar. Soaring basically involves birds finding and using thermal updrafts (known as thermals for short) to stay up in the air with minimal effort. Thermals happen as warmer air moves upwards through the atmosphere, usually in columns. When birds find them, they can ride thermals up to great heights, and with very minimal effort. Soaring birds fly with wings outstretched but do very little if any flapping. Soaring birds also tend to fly in circles so that they can stay within the column of air that is providing the updraft.

Yesterday I had a bunch of errands to run in town, but even then, I take my camera with me, and I was glad I did. As I was coming home I noticed several vultures and a pair of swallowtailed kites (Elanoides forficatus) soaring above one of my neighbor’s yards. I love to watch birds soar. It’s always so graceful and yet looks so effortless. It’s easy to imagine being able to get so high up into the air and being able to see everything the way those birds do. As I sat watching, the kites moved lower in the air to where I thought I could get some photos. These were both taken with a long telephoto lens since the birds were still way up there but the results were quite pleasing.