Weekly Photo Challenge: Distorted

Posted on by mothergrogan

I consider common swifts to be among the most amazing birds I’ve ever had chance to see. During the period from May to August there are thousands of them crowding the sky above the cities and villages. It’s almost impossible to see a swift sitting anywhere, because they spend most of their lives flying, they even mate then – I’ve seen it, I can confirm. Many times I tried to take a picture of flying swifts, but they move so fast and change the flight direction so unexpectedly, so the results were always poor. As you can see here, all I could get are these distorted silhouettes. I guess it’s not easy even for professional photographers.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to seeing them come to my city this year and hear the cheerful cries they make. To learn more about these birds you can check here: http://www.commonswift.org/common_swift.html

Related articles

31 thoughts on “Weekly Photo Challenge: Distorted”

  1. This was interesting, apart from being distorted 🙂 …I didn’t know this bird before!

    Like

    1. The common swifts reside only in Europe (and in Africa during wintertime). I know that some similar species inhabit North America, but I’m not sure about Canada. I need to check it… They are really worth seeing.

      Like

      1. I’m originally from Sweden [only lived in Canada since 2004], but I’d never heard about them before.

        Like

        1. Maybe they don’t go that far north. There are plenty of them in Poland, it is said that every summer about 3000 pairs built nests in my city.

          Ha det bra!

          Like

            1. Nej, jag talar inte svenska 😦

              The company I’ve been working for the last 6 years was Swedish. I’ve had a lot of Swedish colleagues and visited the main office in Goteborg few times. I even started to learn Swedish myself, but wasn’t patient enough. I can understand a lot from hearing but what I can say is not more than: Jag heter Paweł. Jag bor i Warszawa i Polen. Jag arbetar pa…. ad so on 😉 Still got some nice pictures from Sweden, I’ll publish them here one day.

              Like

              1. Cool! We got quite a few doctors from Poland before I left Sweden. They had learnt Swedish IN Poland … they were really good! They had to be good, in order to work as general practitioners with Swedish patients, but I was in awe..

                Like

    1. What I love the most about the swifts, is their habit to make a group flights in circles shortly before dusk, at a very low height. It’s really impressive when they fly along the buildings walls at a great speed. Sometimes they pass my window at a distance of no more than 2 meters! Great birds anyway.

      Like

What do you think?