![\"barn](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/barn-swallow-0398-ron-dudley.jpg\")
<\/p>\nWhen a parent Barn Swallow stuffs food into the mouth of one of its fledglings it usually comes off flawlessly. But not always…<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u00a01\/4000, f\/7.1, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon<\/em> EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n Yesterday morning I spent 25 minutes photographing this young Barn Swallow at Bear River MBR\u00a0as it was begging for food and being fed by its parents.\u00a0At first it was on a different perch but as much as it begged its parents never brought it food there\u00a0so it moved to this\u00a0perch and the feeding frenzy began. Usually the process was amazingly quick and I was lucky to get a single shot while the beak of the parent was inside the mouth of the youngster. But this time the process seemed to take slightly longer and…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a01\/4000, f\/7.1, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon<\/em> EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n I actually got two<\/em> images as the parent tried to stuff an insect down the youngster’s gullet. It wasn’t until I arrived home and looked at the photos on my monitor that I noticed that this time things didn’t go as planned.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a01\/4000, f\/7.1, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon<\/em> EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n As the parent pulled away the insect dropped to the\u00a0ground and the fledgling went without. To confirm that it was actually an insect and not just a stray feather or something else…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n I performed a huge crop on the same image. Yup, it’s a flying insect of some kind. I love the forlorn look on the face of the young bird as it watches its snack fall to the ground.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a01\/5000, f\/7.1, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon<\/em> EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n I found this\u00a0feeding process to be very difficult to photograph. I needed high shutter speeds and as much depth of field as I could get but the varying shadows in the background combined with the swaying perch\u00a0meant that my shutter speed fluctuated wildly. And usually there was at least one significant flaw in the image – clipped body parts or shaded faces or no catch lights or backs turned to me or wings in front of faces. The list was endless.<\/p>\n But occasionally things worked out. In this image, taken on the very next feeding trip, I like the\u00a0light (mostly), the postures of both birds and the behavior.<\/p>\n I made some mistakes during this session that I won’t repeat – among them the fact that I\u00a0shot with my teleconverter attached for much too long which resulted in more images with clipped body parts than was necessary.<\/p>\n Live and learn…<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When a parent Barn Swallow stuffs food into the mouth of one of its fledglings it usually comes off flawlessly. But not always…<\/p>\n![\"barn](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/barn-swallow-0399-ron-dudley.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"barn](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/barn-swallow-0400-ron-dudley.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"barn](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/barn-swallow-0400b-ron-dudley.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"barn](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/barn-swallow-0401-ron-dudley.jpg\")
<\/p>\n