On the weekend of August 14, I along with a dozen other Pennsylvania birders made the long trip up to Martha's Vineyard to see the now famous Red-footed Falcon, featured everywhere from CNN to the front page of the New York Times.  Alongside about 500 other birders throughout the day, we were not disappointed, as the first-year male falcon was present as usual upon arrival and put on quite a show for the next two and a half hours.  The only disappointing aspect of the day - photo opportunities were few, and the cloudless sky made atmospheric heat distortion an obvious problem.  The first photo below, which I consider the best of the lot, is also (not coincidentally) the very first photo I took, when the distortion was at its minimum under the early morning sun.  The other problem was distance - the bird never perched within 100 yards of our position, but did make a few flybys within 100 feet or so.