![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/black-billed-magpie-9436b-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"black-billed-magpie-9436b-ron-dudley.\\"")
<\/p>\nFlying is a lot of work and sometimes it results in surprisingly little aerial progress.<\/p>\n
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1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 640, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS II USM @ 312mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n Yesterday morning I spent some time with a pair of Black-billed Magpies as they refurbished their nest buried in the interior of a still leafless greasewood bush. In this photo the left edge of their complex domed nest can be seen (sort of) as a slightly darker mass at the lower right edge of\u00a0 the frame.<\/p>\n Typical of magpie nests this one apparently has two entrances and one of them is out of frame just below the magpie in flight. This bird had used that entrance to deliver nesting material to the interior of the nest and then exited the same entrance. I caught ‘him’ in flight soon after he took off from the area of the entrance.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 640, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS II USM @ 312mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n This is the next shot in the burst, taken 1\/10th of a second later.<\/p>\n After they’ve leafed out greasewoods can be beautiful in the settings of my bird photos but for obvious reasons I’m less fond of them when they’re still leafless. At this stage I think they’re unattractive and their bright, nearly white stems in combination with a mostly black bird are an incredibly difficult exposure for the photographer. The saving grace in both of these photos is the interesting flight postures and the good light I got on the contrasty magpie plumage that also produced some attractive blue iridescence.<\/p>\n But for me one of the most interesting things about this short series is the surprisingly small amount of aerial progress the magpie made between the first photo and the second. When the viewer picks out greasewood ‘landmarks’ behind the bird it becomes apparent that the magpie only traveled a little over 3″ in the tenth of a second between the two photos. Even though the magpie had recently taken off and he’s attempting to gain both forward and vertical progress I’m still surprised by the short distance he traveled in that amount of time.<\/p>\n Big deal you say, so what?<\/p>\n For me as a bird photographer who’s constantly trying to keep birds in the frame during and soon after explosive takeoffs this is critical information to be filed away and retrieved at a moment’s notice. Followers of Feathered Photography are well aware of how important it is to avoid clipping or cutting off body parts and when those long wings open quickly and unpredictably avoiding those ‘amputations’ is a formidable task. Accurately estimating speed and acceleration at takeoff and soon after is part of the formula for any success I may have.<\/p>\n As I’ve said ad nauseam in the past, in bird photography little things matter.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Note: To make the formula for success in this situation even more complex there was a stiff north breeze blowing in from my right when the magpie took off. Obviously that would tend to reduce his rate of acceleration.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Flying is a lot of work and sometimes it results in surprisingly little aerial progress.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/black-billed-magpie-9437b-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"black-billed-magpie-9437b-ron-dudley\\"")
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