A Parting Gift

Last week, I made another trip down to Monterey Bay for a wildlife safari. The plan was simple: spend five hours out on the ocean, camera ready, hoping for encounters with sharks specifically, but also any whales, dolphins, or seabirds the Pacific was willing to offer that day.

Unfortunately, the ocean had other plans. The weather wasn’t ideal, the wildlife was sparse, and after five hours, I came back to shore with almost no usable images. You win some, you lose some, but that’s a story for another time.

Rather than pack it in completely, I decided to take a short walk around Moss Landing before heading home. I figured there was a slim chance I might find something interesting along the slough or near the harbor. And that’s when I noticed a barn swallow (Hirundo rustica) perched on a fence, framed by a soft blur of wildflowers in the background. It was a nice enough scene, charming and colorful, but nothing particularly special. Still, after a day of empty memory cards, I figured I might as well take the shot.

Then I noticed something: the swallow on the fence was a juvenile. A few seconds later, one of the parents swooped in to feed it. Suddenly, the situation changed completely. I realized this was an opportunity for an action shot.

I repositioned myself, checked my settings, and made sure my shutter speed was fast enough to freeze motion. The challenge, of course, was that there was no way to predict the angle the parent would approach from or how the birds would interact when they met. All I could do was stay patient, stay focused, and be ready.

In the end, the barn swallows delivered. I captured an image of the parent mid-flight, wings spread, beak delivering a fly to the eager mouth of its young. The wildflowers in the background added a soft splash of color, framing the action perfectly.

Would I have driven all the way to Monterey for that shot alone? Probably not. But after a long day that looked like it would end in photographic frustration, those barn swallows sent me home smiling.