Swifts - June 2025

On a sunny morning visit to Ardley in early June I was unexpectedly presented with a perfect opportunity to try my luck photographing swifts. About 20 birds were feeding low over the quarry lake and surrounding vegetation in close proximity to the footpath. They were following a rough circuit meaning they were constantly passing through the same small area of air space, which at least provided some element of predictability. Most of the time there seems little point trying to photograph swifts as they are often too high and distant, too fleeting, or just too difficult. The closer they are, the more tempting it is to try, but their proximity increases their relative speed so it becomes a real challenge. But this was as good an opportunity as I could get to try and take some relatively close up shots of them. Conditions were perfect with the sun on my back, and early enough that it wasn't too bright. I have recently upgraded my camera equipment so am now enjoying the benefits of a mirrorless camera that can shoot up to 40 frames per second with its electronic shutter. Most of the time there is no need for that frame rate, but it had to be utilised for these swifts. Inevitably that meant I took a lot of photos! I didn't check, but certainly four figures, out of which probably 10 half decent ones! The main issue comes with sorting through them afterwards. There is no quick way to check which ones are sharp without looking at them all. There's probably some AI software that can do that now, I guess?! As well as the step up in megapixels and frame rates from what I had before, the autofocus and image stabilisation on this camera is incredible. It certainly doesn't make photographing fast moving small birds or insects easy, but it gives you the tools to get some images that would be a real struggle with older model cameras. As well as the camera, photo-editing software is also quite impressive these days and allows you to squeeze the best of the raw images. So about an hour later with a tired arm I managed the selection below.