Last Christmas my wife gifted me a 60-600 zoom lens and just few days later my company sent me to work some weeks in Uganda, staying in a place only few minutes walking from Victoria lake, a wonderful area for birds photography. My new lens and temporary location make a very lucky combination to get started in birds photography. Two weeks ago, I took Melissa’s course “Capture Birds in Flight” and am now finishing the “Bird Photography” course. Progress is exciting. . Here are few examples: Thanks Melissa

I went to a nearby state park that has a good-sized lake--great place to practice!  Lots of birds, and the ducks and gulls are somewhat used to people being around, which sure helps.  This particular gull kept bathing, then hopping up from the water and diving back down.  Over and over again.  It was spectacular.  It paid to sit and watch and truly observe, or I might not have noticed him.  Because he kept repeating the behavior, I had a lot of opportunity to capture him.  He seemed to be really enjoying the day!  I took this with a Fuji X-T50, 70-300mm lens with a 1.4X teleconverter.  And wow, did the good light make all the difference.  I went out there the day before, light was not great, I got lousy shots.  This day, Christmas Eve, it was cold but the sun was out and made a huge difference in my speeds/ISO.  Exposures much, much better!  Thank you so much for this course, I learned a lot and have already made major improvements in my bird photography.

I went to the local park to try to capture birds in flight. I used camera settings that I've not used before including continuous low and high speed exposures. While there were many unsuccessful photos there were a couple of attempts which successfully put to use the techniques in these lessons. The first photo is a pair of Noisy Miners. While the pair of birds provide an interesting comparison with their wings in the desirable up and down positions, the background is overly distracting.   The second bird was a Little Pied Cormorant that had been perching for some time on the dead tree. Eventually it took off and provided a couple of interesting shots. Unfortunately again the background is overly distracting.

After this last lesson, I went looking for a bird in flight opportunity and immediately found one. This is the first time this summer that I've seen an Osprey in this location. I have a Nikon Z8 with a Sigma 150-600mm zoom lens. For settings I used continuous AF mode with a medium sized spot focus. I manually set the shutter speed to 1/2000s and the f-stop to f/13. The ISO was set to auto and selected 2000 at the time of the exposure. I wasn't able to position myself with the sun directly behind me, but the wind was coming for the direction of the sun and I was lucky to have the Osprey fly in that direction. I am amazed how much easier it is to focus on birds in flight once I started using continuous AF and a little bit wider spot focus area.

Got lucky with this photo - Anna's hummingbird.  I waited perhaps thirty minutes at about five meters from the feeder so the birds would get comfortable with me being present.  Nikon Z6II, Nikkor 600 mm f/6.3, photo taken at f/7.1, ISO 320, 1/2000 s.  I took hundreds of photos of hummingbirds during that session and only a couple turned out to be of sufficient quality.

Great blue heron.  The wind and sun were at my back and so the bird was facing away from me but I was able to obtain a photo that captured the dynamics of the flight feathers as the bird is landing.  Nikon Z6II, Nikkor 600 mm f/6.3, photo taken at f/11, ISO 800, 1/2500.

Captured these Red winged black birds.  Still working on getting sharper pictures.

Went to Seabeck where the bald eagles always gather in Spring!  :)

Birds in flight is not easy especially when you have only a few second to react. This Black Vulture came from my left and I had only a few second to react before it disappears. Three shots and I think they came quite nice. Interesting lights and clear view of it face.

Photos of birds in flight are still difficult for me, I have already tried several times and most of the time the photos are not sharp. I will continue to put into practice the advice given by Mélissa in this course to improve my skills. Here is a Eurasian Jay, which I was able to photograph in flight although the photos are not of good quality.

These photos are all from a couple of years ago, when my camera was brand new, and I was just happily clicking away at the birds visiting my feeder. I was quite astonished to discover the amazing ways that birds use their wings and tails when flying, taking off, or landing... which you can't see when watching with the naked eye. Also they reveal beautiful feather patterns that are not visible when they are at perching. (All photos are slightly blurry, shot through double-paned glass. How come I never thought to open the door?) After this course, I will try to be more intentional in my photographing.

I was on the beach near our house. A number of gulls were on the sand, coming and going. This one was coming in for a landing. I had my camera on manual, 1.3250 sec, f 8.0, auto ISO.

There are still Canada geese and other northern shorebirds migrating through our area, but every day fewer and fewer. And taking photographs of birds in flight is a challenge! I have to understand the direction of the wind and the sun and where I can take my photographs without being blocked by bushes or getting my feet wet. Never mind having to know my birds too! I totally enjoy this challenge outside in the wild world, or fairly wild world. Here is one of my shots of the Canada geese. As well, I had this shot of an American tree sparrow which I edited twice. Once with the background with too much contrast and saturation and the second time when I held back the background that worked better.

I went to the beach near my house in Santa Cruz CA just before sunset. The was a flock of over 100 sanderlings and I positioned myself so that they were front lit as they ran in and out with the waves. When they were disturbed by a dog they flew past me on the ocean side at eye level. giving me opportunity to photograph front lit, side lit, and back lit. This happened more than once so I was able to try different camera settings. The first and third were shot at 1/1000 at F18 while the second was shot at 1/2000 at F8. Stopping down from my usual  wide open 600mm F4 helps to capture the whole flock but also shows the ocean context. Next time I will try 1/1000 at F11.  De-noising was applied.    

Slowly getting better at this.

This White banded Kingfisher was fishing in a nearby pond when after multiple tries I got this shot. Front and side lit with pleasing details of the wings. Left space in the direction of flight and positioned picture in the  left upper third of the frame. Wish I didn't have the cluttered wooded background but it shows its habitat.

Tried to take pictures of backlit Seagulls and this is the best I could come up with. The eye could have been sharper. Its so hard to focus and get a sharp image-practicing, practicing and practicing.

I share this photograph of Short-eared Owl in Colombia.