Taking Flight

Black-capped Chickadee

It is not expensive to provide drinking water in Winter for the birds. I use a large inexpensive plant saucer and a plugin defroster. It is visible from my window and provides an opportunity to photograph the birds as they drink. I’ve been trying to photograph birds in flight for some time. It is a tricky process. They move so quickly that a fast shutter speed is required. They are unpredictable which makes it difficult to know when to take the photo. I took a series of bursts to get these photos. I could sense when the bird was going to take off because he/she crouched down just a bit before exploding into flight.

The Crouch

The Launch

Ready for the power stroke

The Power Stroke

Gaining Altitude

Flap and Repeat

Future Work

So many problems with doing this. I was using a shutter speed of 1/2000 second which might not be fast enough. These photos were taken at 150mm (300 equivalent 35mm sensor) which didn’t give me much of field till the bird flew out of sight. I’ll keep trying.