Aerial Combat, Bird Division

Let's get it on in the air.

I have finally managed to get some photos of birds arguing with each other in an aerial fight. These are difficult to photograph because the birds are not just fluttering there; they are rapidly rising, and are hard to track because the movement is erratic, not predictable. It takes a bit of a Zen attitude to let the following happen, rather than try to forcefully track the birds. One’s sub-conscious is capable of doing the job better, but as with most sports, it takes time to let yourself go and let the thing happen in the Zen manner.

Typical of bird photography, the road to these shots was long. I noticed the previous afternoon that when the sun was shining bright, there were more goldfinches at the feeder and they got into these aerial chirping matches more frequently. (Three or four on that day in an afternoon, so not exactly common.)

So the next time the sun came out, there I was with Sony A1, Sony 300mm f/2.8 (with 1/4x extender, because I like to punish myself by shrinking the field of view), and a cheerful can-do attitude.

And no one wants to fight, because the sun breaks are so brief. Only one or two goldfinches are at the feeders at any one time. My arms are ready to fall off, and I have nothing to show for it.

Finally. A 15 minute sun break, and the birds start to come back to the feeder in greater numbers. I get some shots (not shared here, but including the cowbird photos), but no aerial battles.

Only when my arms are so tired I’m not even lifting the camera for a while do these two show up and get into it. They flutter briefly around the feeder, then they rise rapidly into the air while attacking each other in rapid, swirling gives and takes. Of the 60 or so attempted shots, a handful were useable. And these are not great shots; they don’t have good focus, just acceptable enough focus quality. The birds were moving so fast that sometimes their movement blurred the shots, and other faults.

But I got a handful of useful shots, and here they are. The one gives a sense of the literally rising action.

At times, the two birds looked like a cloud of black and yellow against the blue sky. They moved around and struck out at each other so fast that my eye could only see a blur. The camera froze the motion. (The exposure time was 1/2500th of a second!)

Next time, I want to make sure it’s really sunny (there were some clouds), that I use the fastest possible shutter and a bigger f-stop to get more depth of field. That means a higher ISO, so less detail, but it will do a better job of freezing the action.