Northern Rough Winged Swallow Upgrade

 

   I've gotten lucky with some species and it would be hard to upgrade my photos. Some species have quite literally put on a show and I've been fortunate enough to have a fifteen minute photo shoot with them. When that happens I will manipulate my settings and play with them on my camera. I'll change the aperture and/or the shutter speed. I'll take some photos on the "P" mode and even a few on autofocus. If the bird is close enough sometimes I can get multiple near perfect photos.

   On the other hand, some species just don't want me to photograph them. One example would be Sharp Shinned Hawk. I've seen quite a few. They are not a rare bird especially in the winter. But I'll be damned if I can ever get a photo of one. There are other species that also come to mind that I've gotten either terrible or no photos of. One of them would be Northern Rough Winged Swallow.

  Rough Winged Swallows are a common bird. They nest everywhere there is water. They will also migrate with other swallow species. I see or hear them just about every time I am at Trustom Pond. But for some reason, I can never get a good photo of one. 

   Trying to get a photo of a flying swallow is an exercise in futility. They move so fast and never in a straight line. Trying to focus on one is almost impossible. Hoping one lands in front of me is usually my best bet, but up until Thursday of last week, that strategy has never paid off.

   Thursday I went for a birding bike ride on the South County Bike Path. On my way home I stopped at the Cumberland Monastery because someone reported a Wilson's Warbler there earlier in the day. I knew my chances of getting the Wilson's were small but it was still early and had nothing to lose. I knew the warbler was seen right between two ponds only five minutes from my car. 

   

This was the branch they originally landed on
that got me excited.

   Sure enough there wasn't any sign of the Wilson's Warbler. However I saw some Rough Winged Swallows flying around in the small pond. They landed on a dead stick out in the middle. The sun was right in my face and any photos would be washed out. I started walking to the other side of the pond in the hopes the swallows would stay on the branch and rest. I did not have  hope that these little energetic birds would sit for the three minutes it would take to get on the good side of the light.

   To my surprise the little birds did stay. As I neared them I started taking photos every ten steps just in case they flew. As I got to where the sun was right at my back...they flew. But only for a few seconds. They circled the small pond a couple of times then landed again. The light wasn't as good as I hoped. While the sun was at my back, the dead branch in the water was in the shade. The birds repeated the sit and do a couple of laps multiple times. I had all the time in the world to take all the photos I wanted and to play with my settings. The branch the birds rested on was probably thirty feet from shore. The birds were not taking up the whole frame by any means, but they were still a photo upgrade from the dark drab photos I had before. 

   After taking fifty or sixty pictures I knew I wasn't going to get any better photos of the swallows out on the branch. I walked a few feet up the shoreline and there was a dead snag sitting in the water. I thought that maybe a swallow would come to this snag if I sat still. In my twenty minutes of watching the swallows none had gone over to this branch. It stood within reason that if none had landed there before then they probably wouldn't land there if I was close to it. 

   It turned out I was wrong. About two minutes after getting near this fallen limb a swallow landed just fifteen feet from me. It was close to eye level and in bright sunlight. I started snapping away. After a minute it flew off and I thanked it for the opportunity to get some photos. It must have heard me because it came back. Just as the swallows had done before this one would sit for minute, do some laps and land again. Needless to say, I didn't stop shooting. When I got home and went through my photos I knew the ones of the birds on the branch in the middle would not compare to the on that landed a few feet from me. However, I didn't realize how good the light was and how nice the photos would come out. Enjoy.

My best Northern Rough Winged photo before today