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Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Barn Swallow


While at Crane Creek/Magee Marsh recently, I found Barn Swallows nesting at the visitor's center at Crane Creek. They're one of the most challenging birds I have photographed in flight because they're such swift and erratic flyers. I found an area where they were coming in to land on a bank to get some mud for their nests, so they slowed slightly. I tried to zero in on the small patch of water they crossed and kept trying to get the autofocus to lock on them. I kiss my Canon Mark II and its super fast autofocus and high speed mode for this photo.

Photo © Lillian Stokes, 2007

4 comments:

The Zen Birdfeeder said...

Another gorgeous shot. Thanks.

Anonymous said...

beautiful shot indeed, love the reflection on the water. The shot is a bit grainy, did you use high ISO or high JPEG compression?

RA

Lillian Stokes said...

There is jpeg compression and also Blogger further compresses the shots and can make them seem less color saturated and more washed out. I have been told that if you publish your blog directly to blogger (and its address ends in .blogspot.com) this can happen, but not if you publish to your own website (whose address would end in .com). Does anyone else have a work around for how to make photos on blogger keep their color saturation?

Anonymous said...

Such exquisite photos and that's what you give us every day. You are right there looking for and catching these lovely shots. I love the pictures of the Baltimore Oriole.

I finally saw the BO in a huge Oak tree next door and I keep looking for a nest. they have made nests there before. I wonder if they haven't stated nesting yet? We have barn swallows once again after a few years of absence. there are several nests under our barn and they will patch up one to use.