I love the outdoors. It seems like every time I pass a window in our home, I’m looking for turkeys, squirrels, deer, coyotes, raccoons (and now trains with Jack!). From an early age I can remember being fascinated by large groups of birds that fly as one, and then change direction on a dime, and slowly morph as they seemingly swarm from one location to the next.
To be honest, it’s more difficult to photograph than I had imagined. An enormous group of birds was flocking around our home, and I got out the Contax to try and capture it on film. Molly the dog and I had a small planning meeting; she was to circle around and scare them back towards me. Jack was encouraging both of us, shouting “buwd, buwd, buuuuuwwwd!” to all who would listen. I used my iPhone lightmeter, got an aperture reading for outdoors at 1/30th of a second, and then loosed the hound…
It didn’t really proceed as planned. To more shouts of “buwd, buwd, buuuuwwwd,” Molly’s barking, (plus a subsequent canine ground attack) the birds scattered, and not in the direction I was hoping for. So Molly, Jack and I chased the flock of birds a few hundred yards to actually get these shots…burning quite a few calories, I might add. My next birding adventure might include a longer lens…
The 2nd shot in this series really begins to capture the beauty of what I was looking for in this. Sometimes it’s refreshing to stop what we’re doing, and appreciate the wonder of God’s creation around us.
I had to leave the 3rd shot in as an homage to Molly and her bird-spooking abilities… 🙂
John
