Tree Swallows in flight

 

As always, click the photos to enlarge

A juvenile Tree Swallow (Tachycineta bicolor) rockets by my position. I made a trip to the western marshes of Lake Erie on September 29 and saw many migrant birds. While warblers were a primary target, I could not resist the allure of large groups of Tree Swallows. At Howard Marsh Metro Park, large numbers of these hardy swallows had gathered. The beautiful lighting and general cooperativeness of the birds made for a good opportunity to practice flight shots.

An adult Tree Swallow on the heels of a juvenile. The youngsters are still brownish above, lacking the flashy metallic green iridescence of the adults.

A swallow badgers another bird. To call Tree Swallows feisty would be understating their temperament. For a social bird, they love to chase one another and engage in spectacular aerial dogfights. These battles are not necessarily "play-fighting", although that's often what it appears to be, especially outside of the nesting season. While breeding and sparring over partners and nest sites, these squabbles can get very serious, with birds sometimes hounded and pecked until they fall in the water (if over water) and drown.

Argumentative Tree Swallows shouting at one another, high in the air. Bickering such as this is very common, and after a while you can see a potential fracas brewing and be ready for it. Sometimes, encounters are brief, and the would-be combatants quickly break away and go their separate ways. Other times the gladiators engage in extended battles, hovering and yelling in each other's faces. As a long-time admirer of these charismatic birds and their large personalities, it was such action shots that I was after.

Tree Swallows are hardy beasts and will push the envelope in regard to remaining in the north country as long as possible. Some linger into November, even along Lake Erie. It doesn't take them long to get far to the south, if really inclement weather sets in. As a hedge against a cold-induced paucity of flying insects - their stock in trade - Tree Swallows can eat berries. But sometime in October, most Tree Swallows slip away, heading to southern states and warmer climes. Come March, they'll be trickling back north, a true avian sign of spring.

PHOTO NOTES: Birds in flight (BIF) shots are almost always challenging, especially speedsters like swallows. The amazing advances in camera technology (where will they be in another decade?!) have made such photographic endeavors a bit easier. About a year ago, I got a Canon R5 mirrorless camera. It really shines when pursuing BIF. It has eye-recognition focus-tracking which is mind-blowing. As long as the operator can keep the subject in the field of view, and the camera is set up properly, the focus point will lock on the subject's eye and hold it. Even in flight. At the least, it'll easily lock onto some point on the rapidly moving and often erratic target. This camera, coupled with Canon's 400mm f/4 DO II lens, can slay BIF. I find 400mm to be about the best focal length lens. Get much larger, and it becomes ever harder to quickly find and lock onto the subject. Much smaller, and the bird is often simply too small in the field of view. The Canon telephotos are incredibly fast in attaining focus, which is really important when dealing with BIF.

Depending upon ambient light, I'll shoot anywhere from wide-open (f/4) to f/8 or so. Because this day was mostly bright, all of the above shots were taken at f/8. Stopping down two stops from wide open creates more depth of field in the image, and probably sharpens things up a bit overall (although the 400 DO is quite sharp even wide open). A fast shutter speed is essential, and I was working at 1/2500 for this series. That's about as slow as one can go with flying swallows and mostly freeze the action. I try to find the sweet spot: fast enough, but not faster than need be. Faster shutter speeds are not necessarily better, as the trade-off is a higher ISO which means noisier/grainier images. The ISO's for these shots ranged between 640 and 1000 - not a real problem with the R5's ability to handle higher ISO ranges and still produce a clean file. Had it been a dark cloudy day, I would have had to just accept much higher ISO settings.

Back-button focusing is hugely helpful for BIF (read about back button focus HERE) and having the camera set to AI Servo mode (AI Servo explained HERE) is a must. This makes it so much easier to smoothly track and photograph moving objects. In fact, back button focus is, in my opinion, far better for nearly everything. I switched to it years ago and have never looked back. Just about everyone I know who has made the switch has never looked back. While there is a bit of a learning curve, back button will almost certainly advance your skills as a photographer.