Birds In Flight - Northern Cardinal

For a person loving birds so much, one thing I really would like to accomplish is to photograph "Birds In Flight" (BIF). I have been longing to take BIF shots for a while. After reading and discussing with few good photographer friends, I started from baby steps. Larger birds such as waterfowl and hawks are not too bad as long as you can find them. The real challenge comes to the small song birds, which we see often and their sweet melody often time slows down our foot steps. After two weeks of chasing warblers and gaining little and no satisfactory photograph, I decided to take few days off and to try my luck for few techniques I learned.

Northern Cardinal, Female. Click image to enlarge. 

During early fall I see as many as over two dozens of cardinal, adults and juveniles, flying and foraging in my backyard forest. They are the first ones to wake me up in the early morning and they are also the last birds to sink with the sun. So the first image I would like to share with you is a female Northern Cardinal (click the link to see a video I made in the past).  I snapped her when she was fighting with a Carolina Wren over a "boundary" quarrel and I was wondering where was her man. It's not a perfect shot and I still have a long road to go. I hope you enjoy my work and I welcome your comment and suggestion ....In the mean time, have a great  migration weekend :) -- Happy Birding! -- Linda