Common Nighthawk in flight

[Greg Lasley]

While driving along I-10 in Kimble Co., Texas, the other day during late morning I noted several Common Nighthawks foraging in the air over a small side road. The species usually forages at night, but may sometimes be active in the daytime as well. I was able to park near the foraging birds and take several hundred images before they departed. The birds were too far away for most of the shots, but occasionally one came closer to me. The foraging flight of this species is very erratic and they can be hard to keep in the viewfinder even under the best of circumstances. I only kept about 20 out of 250 total images shot, and this was the best of the lot. In the original image the bird is in the left of the frame so I've added canvas and cloned in the sky for a better frame for the bird. The actual bird is about he same size it would be on the original crop. Not sure whether this was the best way to do this, but it seems to work with the flat blue sky. The sun was a little high so lighting was tough, but so it goes.

Canon EOS 1D Mark III
EF 500m F/4 L IS lens handheld
1/6400 sec @ f/4.0
400 ISO

[Doug Brown]

I think you did well with the exposure Greg. Love the underwing detail. Crop works fine for me. The only photo I've got of this bird is on a power line!

[Greg Lasley]

I used +2/3 stop exp. comp on the shot which helpd with the underwing detail I suspect.

[Randy Stout]

Greg:

Nice capture. I think of Nighthawks as high altitude barn swallows, as far as how tough they are to capture. Good work. The underwing detail is very nice.

Randy

[Glenn Bartley]

Very nice image. I think the comp works quite well.

[Nikolay Staykov - shotlandetsa]

Wonderfull bird and very good exposure and detail!