Birds and Motion
continuing experimentation
birdwatching often provides scenes and flight patterns that are truly spectacular..
but traditional photo techniques often fall short of capturing the scale and grandness of what our eyes can easily perceive.
Image: the great Tree Swallow migration, captured over the Great Marsh in coastal Massachusetts. One of my first experimentations with this technique in 2021.
This image renders a few thousand Swallows as they fly past me, some flying as close as 10 feet away, while others are hundreds of feet above. 35mm, 240 frames overlayed into one image.
Attempting to capture motion over time has been attempted as far back as 18th Century Baroque dance publications.
Just a few examples.
Pelicans and Cormorants circle their dramatic island cliffside home.
Rocky islands that are too small or steep to support human or carnivorous mammal life are crucial habitats for nesting seabirds.
This island in California has enough surface area to support up to 10,000 resting seabirds, and a few thousand nesting seabirds. With birds constantly in motion circling or departing for a seafood meal, the rock face feels almost like a living organism itself.
A scene I’ve returned to on multiple occasions and perspectives
5 seconds of frames compressed into one image.
Failure to land.
A cormorant attempts to land on a smaller rock, but is detered by existing birds already resting on the rock’s peak. It’s okay though, the bird found a resting place just across the cove.
Chimney Swifts
As their name implies, Chimney Swifts do, in fact, love chimneys. Prior to human presence, these birds would find hollow trees to collectively roost in on their migration routes. However, once humans started building chimneys, these birds preferred these structures due to their superior darkness.
Here you see around 1000 birds swirling around the chimney prior to entering to roost for the night.
To be Continued..
a never ending series of experimentations.
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