Bird Photography Practice; Interesting Sequence

Three, what I believe are, Purple Martins in the crown of a distant pine tree.
Shortly after I made this image, the action started.  See the images below.  (click to enlarge)

For those of you who regularly read this blog, you know I've been working diligently at learning bird photography.  It is a difficult challenge.  Probably the hardest genre of photography I've tried.  But I am determined to get better so I practice whenever I can.

Recently, for bird and wildlife photography,  I was testing an OM Digital Systems (OM Systems) OM-1 camera with an Olympus 100-400mm f/5-6.3 lens attached and comparing several aspects of using that combination to my Fujifilm X-H2S with the Fujifilm 150-600mm f/5.6-8 lens.  I wanted to compare size, weight, ease of use, handholdability, image stabilization, AF speed and accuracy, 'hit' rate, subject detection ability as well as, of course, overall image quality.

During one of my tests, I heard some birds high up in the top of a nearby pine tree.  There were three or four small birds, Purple Martins as best the Merlin app would later determine, sitting in the crown of the tree with other swallows occasionally swooping in.  The interlopers appeared to be to be trying to take over the best perching branches, then flying away after being fended off by those already there.  That is what I thought was happening until I later looked at the images in Lightroom at 100%.  It turns out the birds suddenly appearing were adults bringing food and feeding a couple of the birds perched on the pine boughs.  This action took place so quickly that I could not discern it while looking through the viewfinder.

I did manage to capture an interesting sequence of images showing the adult bringing a dragonfly to one of its, I'll assume, offspring.  Since the birds were so far away, I cropped all of these images from the 20.4mp OM files to about 3mp (I cropped out roughly 85% of the original image), then sent the 3mp files to Topaz Photo AI to be upsized to 12mp (400%).  I then cropped them slightly again and that is what you see here.  I will say the OM-1 files are excellent, robust and have nicely withstood all of my editing gyrations.  I'm impressed!

The bird on the main part of the branch flew off as the adult approached.  From where I was
standing, very far off, and as quickly as swallows fly and move, it appeared to me the birds
were fighting for territory.  Only after I returned home and looked at my images in Lightroom,
did I see that this was a feeding ritual.  Here you can clearly see the adult pushing a dragonfly
into the mouth of the bird on the left. (click to enlarge)

 

I'm thinking the dragonfly is still alive as I picked up blur in the wings in some of the images as
the transfer was being made. (click to enlarge)

The transfer is complete and the adult starts to back off. (click to enlarge)

Ahhh!  Lunch! According to metadata in the image files, all of this took place in less than
one second!  I told you it was fast.  Very cool! (click to enlarge)

Anyway, I thought photographing a swallow feeding a dragonfly to its young very interesting and probably something we don't often get to witness.

Just FYI.  As far as the comparison, well, the OM/Olympus combination is about half the size of the Fujifilm kit, about a pound lighter, is 75% of the cost of the Fujifilm kit (Amazon $3300 versus $4400 US) and the images are largely identical for quality, sharpness, color, etc.  I found the 'hit rate' for subject detection better with the OM combination.  Very interesting as well.

Join me over at my website, https://www.dennismook.com. 

Thanks for looking. Enjoy!  

Dennis A. Mook  

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