Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Barn Swallow feeding young

I was looking for butterflies at the Calvin Coolidge homestead natural area on the east side of Route 100A where there are walking trails around this beautiful area. It’s also very 'birdie'. The weather was closing in, dark clouds, wind and not much moving . I decided to leave before the rain when I heard a loud bird noise. Looking around I found two Barn Swallow juveniles perched on a snag shaking and calling for more food. A parent showed up and fed the one squawking the most. This was done quickly and on the wing, taking only a few seconds. I was able to observe this on the wing feeding one more time before the rains started and I had to leave. These images show a very interesting behavior taking place in the air. These last four images are a four image burst which gives you some idea how fast this food transfer was. I was surprised by the speed.



All the images were cropped 100% or more because I was using my butterfly camera set-up with a short close-up lens.


Enjoy
Peter Manship

1 comment:

Don and Sher said...

Been a while since I stopped by but still great shots as usual. I have never seen the feeding before.