Let's twist again...

I spent most of yesterday at the Little Salt River Park in Shepherd.  My reason for being at the park was to collect aquatic invertebrates with 5th grade students from Shepherd Elementary.  I worked with one class in the morning and a second class in the afternoon with a hour-long break for lunch.  While I was waiting for the second class to arrive I tried photographing some of the Barn Swallows that were swooping low over the river to catch flying insects.  Many of these insects were the adult form of insects that students were trying to catch in the water. 

Photographing individual swallows in flight is not impossible, but it is not easy.  Most photos that you see of flying swallows are probably taken either as the swallow slows down to approach a nest or shot using some sort of automatic trigger on a camera.  I was trying to follow the birds with my camera as they swooped low over the river.

My success rate was not very high. 

The photos could have been better if it had been a sunny day.  The photo with the clearest focus on the swallow was this one in which swallow has almost exited the frame of the photo - chopping off its head.

My favorite picture is this one.  The swallow is just an inch or two above the surface of the water, but that's not why I like this picture.

If you look closer you can see some of the incredible flexibility of the swallow as it executes a turn.  As you looked at the other photos above you might have noticed that the upper surfaces of a Barn Swallow's back and tail are a solid dark blue.  In this photo you can see the lower surface of the tail and the upper surface of the back and wings. 

Basically this bird has twisted at the hips/waist to change direction.  It's hips are rotated as much as 120 degrees- 1/3 of the way around.  It's this flexibility that allows swallows to change direction almost instantly while in flight.  It's pretty amazing adaptation that allows swallows to feed almost exclusively on flying insects.