I could never resist a challenge.....

For a long time I always thought it would be nigh on impossible to photograph swifts on the wing as they swoop over rivers and hedgerows. For me this would be the ultimate in SBIF challenges. However, buoyed up by my success in capturing midges and them sand martins on the wing earlier this week I thought I, at least, ought to have a go.

Normally we only see the swifts for a couple of weeks in the early summer but this year they appeaqr to be staying around for much longer. I would usually see them swooping oover the river as I took the dogs on their afternoon walk. However, yesterday I noticed there were a group that were flying close to the pathway which goes down to river over a field that has been left by the council to grow wild to encourage wildlife. I tried to capturethem yesterday afternoon but it was very overcast and as the light levels were low it was both hard to get a them in focus and with adequate exposure. As I got a couple of nearly good enough shots, I thought I would have another go this afternoon as it was much brighter which meant I could use a smaller aperture and increase my chances of getting one which was adequately focussed and the exposure should be better as well.

I was not wholly successful and so my blip today is a montage of birds flying - my most successful swift shot, a collared dove and a group of birds flying around over the trees on the other side of the field. I suspect they are rooks or certainly one of the corvus species but I did not have binoculars with me to confirm this.

Yet again my initial identification has proved to be erroneous. The fast flying bird at top left is a swallow not a swift as it has the two thin distinctive feathers sticking out of its tail