As the seasons change in Florida (as much as seasons change here), the birds in the area change too. And it’s the time of year for seeing Barn Swallows at Lake Apopka Wildlife Drive.
I came across a group of them on Saturday. From my experience last year, I knew these colorful but speedy little birds dart across the sky and landscape, making the hard to photograph them in flight. But sometimes you can get them hanging out together in a nearby tree of shrub.
I knew just the place, and I found a group sitting pretty waiting for their photograph. But as I started taking photos, a nearby juvenile Black-crowned Night Heron decided to fly away — startling the little Barn Swallows off their branch.
So, I ramped up the shuttle speed on my camera and started trying to track the little birds in flight and snap some photos. Surprisingly, I got a couple of good shots.
Some fun facts about Barn Swallows, from AllAboutBirds.org:
- “The Barn Swallow is the most abundant and widely distributed swallow species in the world. It breeds throughout the Northern Hemisphere and winters in much of the Southern Hemisphere.”
- “Although the killing of egrets is often cited for inspiring the U.S. conservation movement, it was the millinery (hat-making) trade’s impact on Barn Swallows that prompted naturalist George Bird Grinnell’s 1886 Forest & Stream editorial decrying the waste of bird life. His essay led to the founding of the first Audubon Society.”
