Weightless Off the Post
As I work photographically the good population of Meadowlarks this year, opportunities to set up are rare. Chances to actually get your camera adjusted from slow moving landscapes to freeze very fast moving birds are rarer. Timing a take off and having the bird actually in the zoomed frame you established earlier. About a 1/2 dozen adjustments from where the camera was to where it is now. All my encounters are random in our “back yard”. (We have a big back yard).
Meadowlarks are not the best fliers from my observations. They are a little “stubby” perhaps for their body shape. What they lack in aerobatic prowess, they more than suffice as singers and lookers. In a perfect world it would have had it’s wings up showing off it’s yellow breast to the camera.
Photographic Musings:
I consider this kind of bird capture very difficult 4.5 out of a possible 5 on the hard scale. It takes very fast reflexes and a degree of anticipation to time this. Obviously a fast shutter speed, medium f-stop and adjust ISO for your lighting. If you have a LOT of sun then kick that f-stop up to 22, 1/1000th at least then ISO last to bring in the exposure you need. Machine gunning the camera taking 5 or more images a second won’t help much. This takes place in the first 1/4 of a second. It’s very hard for me to do at least lol.
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming / Montana borderlands (Wyotana)
Title: Weightless Off the Post