Swallow Acrobatics

Most afternoons this week, when I have taken the dogs a walk, the swallows have been active along the river bank and I have been endeavouring to capture their flight using my compact camera. This a highly inexact art, a bit like my street photography, when I try to follow their flight by pointing the camera roughly in the right direction. I have been amazed just how good the camera is at latching on to the birds wherever they are in the frame if I am using continuous autofocus. Mind you this is a relative statement, I will probably get maybe a 5% success rate in a couple of hundred shots. Mind you shooting at 10 frames per second that is not a lot shooting time.

This afternoon I determined to have another shot with a view to presenting one as my blip. Previously most of the shots have been with them flying just above the water's surface. Today they were giving such an aerial display that I tried to follow them into the air. This is generally less successful and the contrast levels are such that the bird either appears as a silhouette or too dark to bring out its distinctive markings in post-processing. However, I was lucky with just two or three of my shots and this one with the wings and tail outstretched was by far my favourite.

Not quite as pin sharp as I would like and unfortunately you cannot see the distinctive deep red face of the adult barn swallow but the beautiful outline and long tail feathers are clearly visible. I guess my next challenge will be to capture this flight with a decent telezoom lens on my SLR so that we can get get much closer in. However, this is progress as a year ago I did not think it would ever be possible to get a decent picture because of their rapid flight pattern.