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Bird In Flight Show and Tell

Steve Fines

New member
Hello,

Thanks for the comments.

#2 is a loon taking off. They are big birds and cannot just jump out of the water and fly, but rather have to run (you can see this in the feet and splashes) quite a ways into the wind to get enough lift to get airborne.

Occasionally one will mistaken a large black parking lot for a lake and land on it. This will usually kill the loon, not from the landing, but from the fact that they cannot take off from land, needing to run and get going in the water.

#3 is a loon landing. Unlike ducks the loon lands with its feet extended behind, coming into the water chest first. They often drag their wingtips first for stability / adjustment. This is the line you can see in the water on #3, where the wing and then the foot have touch the surface of the water before it landed.
 

Brian Lowe

New member
Big City Bird

Wonderful pictures everyone.

Here is my attempt, this is what you get when you try to go birding in a big city.

Taken with my trusty Rebel XT with 100-400 L IS lens near the local hamburger stand.


-Brian-

Titled: Pickup your own trash

66094282-L.jpg
 

Steve Fines

New member
Good story. Typically this shot is tough to expose against the sky, but you've clearly done it well.

Mike Spinak said:
Here's another one of my bird in flight shots:

Juvenile Red Tailed Hawk Flying

© Mike Spinak

1/800th of a second, f/8, ISO 250, 300 mm f/4 IS lens, with 1.4x teleconverter, on a 1Ds Mark 2, handheld.

This picture is another case of analysis and strategy. It had become apparent that the boom-bust population cycles of the local rodents had coincided in such manner as to make a vastly larger than usual rodent population. This, in turn, lead to a large influx of raptors, and I wanted to take full advantage of the opportunity to photograph them.

Raptors like to minimize their energy expenditure by flapping their wings as little as possible, while soaring, surveying the ground for rodents to prey upon. Stiff, constant breezes make this possible. I sought out a prime area, for both stiff, constant updrafts, and large rodent populations, to get hawk pictures. I went to the aptly named Windy Hill, and looked for a spot where two small hills along the ridgeline met, with a notch between them. Sure enough, there was a constant, stiff updraft coming through the notch, over the ridge, and there was a young red tailed hawk, hovering perfectly still on the breeze, surveying the ground for rodents. I walked up under it, and took this picture.
 
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