As I was walking through the marsh land early this morning, a flock of very loud black birds flew overhead. I was surprised at how many there were and how noisy they were. I think they may be some kind of blackbird and that they are in the process of migrating. I managed to snap a few photos of some of the birds as they were flying. It is fun to look at all of the different body positions of the individual birds when I took the shots.
I especially like this first photo. It looks to me like the bird who is lagging behind is calling out to the other birds, requesting that they slow the pace a bit so that he does not fall behind. The birds look almost cartoonish and the photo just makes me smile.
“Please slow down.”
The second photo shows an even greater number of different positions. You may want to click on the photo for a higher resolution view so that you can appreciate the uniqueness of the individual birds.
Unsynchronized flying
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
They are common grackles. They will fly in huge flocks with redwing blackbirds and rusty blackbirds (whose call sounds like a squeaky hinge). They can be in flocks (fall through winter) that can stretch for miles. This is here in southern Illinois.
Thanks for the help with identifying the birds. I thought they might be grackles because of the blue around the neck, but really wasn’t sure. I spotted a number of red-winged blackbirds today too. They were on the ground and easier for me to identify.
I believe you have grackles there. I really like your “wait for me” shot!
Thanks, Gary. If’s always fun to end up with a shot that lends itself to a caption contest. Without that lagging bird, the shot would have been a lot less interesting.
Fantastic! I love the different wing positions in flight, and all in focus. Kudos! what speed did you shoot at?
I shot at ISO200, f8.0, at 1/1250 of a second. I didn’t necessarily intend to shoot that fast, but I had been photographing birds on the ground right before the in-flight shots and was shooting in aperture preferred mode. (FYI the on-the-ground-shots were at 1/80 sec). Usually when I snap off photos of an unexpected subject, the setting are really off. In this case I was lucky and the settings I was using worked in my favor.
Great shots! They remind me of “Angry birds” 😀 my favorite iPhone game
I have never played “Angry Birds,” but I just checked out some photos of the birds in the game and I can see the resemblance.
Don’t they look like serious! In the first photo, one seems to definitely be barking orders to the rest of them. Thanks for sharing the insights that accompany such wonderful close-ups.
It’s fun to imagine what birds and animals might be thinking as we see them in action (even if it is rarely accurate).