Talk of the buzzard

After commenting that I had not seen a buzzard since my arrival, I spotted one this afternoon. It was quiet low but despite that the auto-focus annoyingly refused to lock on. In fact I only got this one image because the auto-focus had locked onto a tree by mistake.

I have encountered this problem often and usually when the camera is pointed skyward. Theoretically point focus should lock on easily as it relies on contrast (I think or is it infra red, maybe both?). Whatever, I always thought it was just a problem with my camera but then I met a guy in Spain who was photographing a booted eagle being mobbed by seagulls. I joined him and once again I only got one blurry image, so I mentioned this problem to him. Despite using a more expensive Canon he had the same problem.

I also have experienced this when photographing distant objects such as the horizon at maximum zoom. Switching to manual focus also does not help as it is virtually impossible to focus accurately on distant objects especially when they are moving.

Anyway nice to know there are still some buzzards around, I will keep looking ... watch this space.