Most wildlife photographers are familiar (or at least should be) with using the peak of action, the short moment between movements, for the shot. It has been quite often best described with a bouncing basketball. The brief moment when the ball reaches its highest point and the speed is zero. This is the moment when you have your chance to make a sharp shot, no matter what your shutter speed is. The only way to make this work for your photography is trying to predict this moment a tad before and then use the ability of the camera to shoot several frames per second (the Nikon D300s does 6 fps). The Horned Lark gave me a hard time. Both were foraging, head down, and with high speed and intensity. Yes, there was peak of action but it occurred very irregular. Sometime the birds didn’t stop for more than ten seconds. Other times I thought I nailed it, but the lark had their eyes closed. Well, as you can imagine I had my good share of misses yesterday evening…
The good thing was that the light got better with every minute while working with the birds. You may ask why some of the grass and background looks black. The DNR (for my German friends: Department of Natural Resources, similar to Naturschutzbehörde) had a controlled burning in the area the week before. This is a way to keep prairie and marsh land in good condition. Wild fires have always played an important role for the health of these ecosystems and landscapes.
