Turkey Vultures and Tree Swallows on the wing

On October 11, I made an expedition to the St. Marys Fish Hatchery in western Auglaize County, near the eastern shore of Grand Lake St. Marys. The primary purpose was to photograph shorebirds, especially White-rumped Sandpipers. I had success on that score, returning with many nice files of white-rumps and several other species. You can see some of those photos HERE, and HERE.

But life is not just shorebirds, and after I was done shooting those, I set out to walk the entire hatchery and see what the other ponds and wetlands might hold.

One of the drawn-down ponds held the carcasses of a number of sizeable fish, and these tasty sun-baked morsels had not escaped the Turkey Vultures' sharp eyes. Or nostrils. Vultures don't miss a trick. They rank high among the most observant, and intelligent, birds in the world.

Turkey Vultures are conspicuous on the wing, with their six and a half foot wingspans. Despite the birds' massive size, they can be harder to make crisp images of than one might think. That's because the bird is often FAR away, much further than one might think. Huge crops in post-processing often produce a rather noisy image that lacks in crispness. But this situation allowed close access. I stood on the edge of a fencerow and shot the birds as they came and went.

These images were made with a tripod-mounted Canon 7D Mark II, with the 500mm f/4 II lens. A 1.4x teleconverter connected the two, making for 700mm of reach and that's not counting the 1.6x crop factor of the camera. Such a rig allows for LONG reach, and the photographer can stay out of the birds' wariness zone. This photo was shot at f/8, 1/3200, and ISO 500.

A juvenile Turkey Vulture wafts by. Notice its dusky-gray head. Shooting vultures, at least when they're as close as these ones were, is relative child's play. They don't move fast enough to present major challenges. It's more a matter of keeping the camera trained on the subject, and waiting until the bird presents a good angle, with the best available light. All settings were the same for this shot as the prior two.

Flying Tree Swallows present a far greater photographic challenge. One of the ponds had 100 or so of the little speedsters zipping about, and I spent a bit of time trying for shots. While some are OK, none are fabulous. My biggest mistake here was not having my 100-400mm lens along. That lens is great for handheld flying bird images, as can be judged by the examples RIGHT HERE.

So, to experiment, I took the 1.4x teleconverter off, and tried shooting the birds with the straight 500mm off the tripod. I probably should have tried for some handheld shots as well, but the big lens acts a bit like a kite in windy conditions, and that makes it hard to get sharp shots. This image came out OK. It was shot at f/7.1, 1/2000, ISO 500, and -1/3rd stop exposure compensation.

Locking on and keeping focus on flying swallows on a breezy day is tough. Most of my efforts went into the digital dust bin. But it wouldn't have mattered much if I got any keepers or not. Tree Swallows are one of my favorite birds, and it was fund to watch their antics and aerobatics. This one is in the act of water-skimming - hitting the water with the top of its head, and with a quick backwards neck snap, sending a spray of water over its body. When you fly as well as these birds do, almost everything can be done on the wing: feeding, bathing, drinking, even mating.

I look forward to honing my skills some more with swallows in flight, but that's probably going to have to wait until next spring (unless a Florida trip pops up this winter!).

Turkey Vulture

I always have scads of images in reserve, most of which never appear here. This series of Turkey Vulture photos was among them. I liked the way the shots came out, and as this is one of my favorite birds, I could not go without sharing them. And what better day to do so than on Christmas, in spite of the possibility of perceived symbolism.

The images were made at the Wilds back in November. The vulture was quite cooperative, but I was using the car as a blind and shooting out the window. Had I been on foot, the vulture would not have let me get near this close. I like the "bokeh" effect of the shots. Bokeh is modified from the Japanese word boke, which basically means blur, and refers to the quality of an image's background.

In the case of these images, the pleasing (to me, at least) gray-green background is the aggregate of fields of browning fescue grasses, interspersed with occasional autumn-olive shrubs. The images were made with Canon's 500mm f/4 II, with 1.4 teleconverter, which makes for a focal length of 700mm. The depth of field with this setup is quite shallow, hence the pleasing bokeh.

A face only a mother vulture could love, but that ugly mug is efficient. Turkey Vultures are strict carrion eaters, and their fare is often rather messy. It is easier to keep a face of bare skin clean than would be the case of it were densely feathered.

Note the massive nostril. Vultures find their food by sense of smell, and they're quite accomplished in the olfactory department. Even malodorous carcasses that are hidden from view are unerringly keyed in on.

One could write a book about just this species of vulture, as they have so many interesting facets to their lives. For me, as a young lad, Turkey Vultures were an endless source of fascination. I would lie on my back under big blue skies and watch them trace lazy loops high in the ether. Their flight is effortless, often not involving as much as a flap of the wings for many minutes on end. I thought that, if one had the opportunity to be a bird, Cathartes aura might not be a bad choice. Yes, the menu might leave something to be desired, but that's just the egocentric take of Homo sapiens. To the vulture, a fermenting opossum is t-bone steak.

All or nearly all vultures in my central Ohio neck of the woods have fled south for the winter. But it won't be long and they'll be returning in force. The Turkey Vulture is an early harbinger-of-spring, riding back into town on the first mild winds of late February, their appearance a precursor of an ever-increasing cascade of vernal migrants.