Caught in Mid-Flight

Summer hit like a blazing fire, we went from temps in the 60s to 90s this weekend. Cleaned out the air conditioner and went for the first dip in the pool this weekend. Last night the heat got broke by a quick thunder shower but before the rain came I got to snap a few pictures of the tree swallows as they fed their young. It would have been better if the sun was out – kind of a grey sky but the pose is what I was after. I don’t get many opportunities to snap pictures of the birds in flight and wanted to take advantage of the situation. I can change the lighting in my painting but the reference for the wing position is invaluable. I had my camera (Cannon EOS digital) set to “machine gun” as Paul likes to call it and got lots of pictures I will use in a future art piece. Here is one of my favorites, you can click on the image for a larger view.

I started out taking picture to the side front of the box to capture the tree swallow as it exited the nest box and then moved to the back to capture the bird as it approached the nest. It was funny each time as it would land on the front of the nest box it would peek around the corner to check if I was a threat.