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Out for a walk and came across this Great Blue Heron fishing in this algae covered pond. Saw the tell tale lean into the wind and caught this shot as he launched into flight.

Nikon D500, 500mm PF, f/5.6, 1/2500", ISO 360
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Now that's just good shooting. Awesome shot of a GBH and a nice clean BG. Really well done.
Thanks, much appreciated.

Gotta give a lot of credit to the D500 in Group AF Area Mode. It nailed every shot until the GBH ducked down below some grass which the AF system latched onto. Here's a frame 13 shots later that I liked but all the shots in that sequence held the eye sharp.

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Flock shots are always a lottery.

Banded Stilts floating and standing, then taking off. I've cropped that a bit to get a pattern effect.
Ocean's edge at Avalon, Australia.

They're amazing birds. They can be heavy with eggs and then fly hundreds of kms to ephemeral inland salt lakes to lay them in a scrape in the sand. It isn't known how they know when the lakes have filled.

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Flock shots are always a lottery.

Banded Stilts floating and standing, then taking off. I've cropped that a bit to get a pattern effect.
Ocean's edge at Avalon, Australia.

They're amazing birds. They can be heavy with eggs and then fly hundreds of kms to ephemeral inland salt lakes to lay them in a scrape in the sand. It isn't known how they know when the lakes have filled.

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Great shot Ziggy!👍👍
 
Bank swallow flying away from its nest.

Set up near a sand bank that was being used as nesting by these little speed demons. It took a bit of time and a lot of misses; but I eventually got some ok'ish flight shots. This is my favourite.

D500, 500f4, f/4, 1/4000, iso 560.

Bank swallow by Jochen Maes
Great Shot!👍 They are SO difficult to shoot because of their need to change direction SO often.
 
Just an Osprey against blue sky which isn't my favorite kind of shot but the interesting thing is that this was captured with my Z6 II with the 500 PF plus TC-20e iii mounted up. I'm amazed at what the mirrorless camera could do in terms of AF tracking with a lens plus TC combo that's f/11 wide open and how well the 2x TC paired up with the 500mm PF in terms of sharpness and contrast. Admittedly this is a pretty high contrast shooting situation in mid day light but I'd pretty much given up on Nikon's 2x teleconverters and a friend suggested I give this combo a try. Gotta say it's not half bad if you've got the light to shoot at f/11.

Nikon Z6II, 500mm PF + TC-20e iii (1000mm), f/11, 1/3200", ISO 2500
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Just an Osprey against blue sky which isn't my favorite kind of shot but the interesting thing is that this was captured with my Z6 II with the 500 PF plus TC-20e iii mounted up. I'm amazed at what the mirrorless camera could do in terms of AF tracking with a lens plus TC combo that's f/11 wide open and how well the 2x TC paired up with the 500mm PF in terms of sharpness and contrast. Admittedly this is a pretty high contrast shooting situation in mid day light but I'd pretty much given up on Nikon's 2x teleconverters and a friend suggested I give this combo a try. Gotta say it's not half bad if you've got the light to shoot at f/11.

Nikon Z6II, 500mm PF + TC-20e iii (1000mm), f/11, 1/3200", ISO 2500
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And it makes a pretty compact and portable 1000mm rig.
 
Seeing all the fantastic posts on the Hummers thread I figured another popular area for wildlife photos is Birds in Flight. Anyone interested in sharing BIF photos?

I'll kick it off with this Great Egret captured this morning down by the Snake River. It was well past sunrise when I came across this guy fishing along the bank of a small side channel. The sun was getting pretty high in the sky but we've got a lot of smoke from Western forest fires which diffuses the light a bit (can't even see the Tetons from Jackson right now) so I thought I'd give it a go. I sure wish he'd flown towards me but I really liked the darker mountainside across the river as a background.

Nikon D5, 500mm PF @f/6.3 1/1250' ISO 500

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So what are folks capturing for Birds in Flight?
Very nice picture
 
A Black Kite obligingly did two circuits in front of me at this Ramsar-listed wetland at Werribee Australia.

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