Flying head-on

|| Bhushi Dam, Pune district || Dec 2022
Every winter, thousands of Amur falcons depart from their breeding grounds in Russia to spend the next few months in Southern Africa. Enroute, they take a pit stop across India's Western and Southern coasts to refuel for the long flight onwards. And this time it was the turn of Bushi dam, in Lonavala. Getting good closeup of this bird was not easy. I had observed that the Amur falcons feed on the insects amongst the dry grass, I had to crawl in the grass in order to get close enough and after multiple tries from morning, eventually in the evening I was able to take this photo, the falcon flew right at me, head-on as I was lying in wait to get this frame.