Swift by name and by nature

[Mousetoescamper]

Chimney swifts started arriving here last week during their spring migration. There are many older homes with masonry chimneys in my neighborhood in Lancaster, PA. The chimneys offer ideal nesting sites for the swifts. These birds fly high and fast. Auto focus is useless for shooting swifts, which are in constant fight until they come in to roost in the chimneys and other hollows after dark. Following them with a long lens while manually focusing was a challenge.










Rooftops across the street from my home.

Fun Facts About Chimney Swifts (from U.S. Fish &Wildlife Service)
-Among the fastest flyers in the bird world---60 miles per hour or more
-Can echolocate but not as well as bats
-Dine exclusively on flying insects, eating one-third of their body weight per day
-Despite their small size (21 g), they can fly up to 500 miles per day while hunting insects
-Forage at great heights – above buildings and treetops – 65 to 3,000 feet or more
-Captures more than 1,000 flying insects a day---up to 12,000 when feeding young
-Annually fly more than 6,000 miles (10,000 km) on round trip migrations to South America and back.
-Can fly over 1.2 million miles (2 million km) in a year
-Can live up to 14 years in the wild, but most have a life span of about 4 years

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Love your photos of swifts, my dear Mousetoescamper! Very cool!

Maybe your camera has a burst mode, where you hold down the shutter button and it takes multiple photos? Mine will do that, though I'm not sure how common a feature this is.

Anyway, I think you did well! You keep challenging yourself and that is a good thing.

[Mousetoescamper]

4. The setting is "continuous shooting" which I always use when shooting fast-moving subjects.

The difficulty is in getting manually-focused shots of subjects that quickly dart in and out of the frame. Most birds fly more-or-less in a straight line. Chimney swifts perform aerial acrobatics and quickly change direction to scoop up insects in midair. They're among the fastest birds on the planet and photographing them is made even more difficult by their flying high in the sky.

Thanks!

[Easterncedar]

2. Wonderful photos, full of action

The facts are cool, too. Just imagining all those miles for a long-lived individual - wow.

[Mousetoescamper]

5. Thanks!

[HAB911]

3. great catch!

I try to capture our Purple Martins in aerial acrobatics but so far not been successful, too small, too high

[Mousetoescamper]

6. Thanks!