The featured image of this post is hands down my favorite shot of 2024.
This Kestrals (Tårnfalk) territory follows Hou Beach where lots of people walk their dogs or just enjoys the environment. So this bird is very accustomed to human presence and very approachable.
The Kestral is my favorite bird to photograph because it is one of the few birds that can hover absolutely still in the air over an area while looking for pray, making it the perfect subject to photograph as you actually have time to dial in your settings while capturing a bird in flight.

One of the things I love the most about these pictures is that they where taken with the Sigma 150-600mm Contemporary. Especially the picture of the Kestrel in flight I think demonstrates that you really don’t need a 20K $ prime F4 lens to get good pictures. Having never handled such a beast of a lens, I can of course not say for sure if the image quality couldn’t have been even better, but for hobby photography I think this is plenty sharp enough!
If you want to get into wildlife photography on a budget I can highly recommend this lens. You can usually pick them up second hand for around 8-900 $. Especially on an APS-C camera body this will give you great reach for most wildlife photography.