Birds on a wire

Today I found that even though I don't miss spending my whole day in Bennington, I did kinda miss the ducks. So after work I headed over to Whimsy Pond to see what sorts of birds might be hanging out there today. Alas, I didn't see any ducks—or anything in the way of waterfowl, actually—when I arrived. So I decided to photograph some of the asters I noticed along the bank:





A familiar bird cry caused me to start scanning the opposite side of the pond through my telephoto lens, and it didn't take me very long to spot the source:



There were at least four Kingfishers flying around at one point, but I only got a few halfway decent shots over the course of my time there:





In fact, the stars of today's show over at the pond were the swallows—there were dozens of them hanging out on the telephone wire strung along the road. Although this first shot was one I took right after they all decided to vacate said wire::



I swear, there were a few moments I wondered if I'd somehow wandered over to San Juan Capistrano:







Some of the swallows circling over the pond:



I tried to get some photos when the birds actually made contact with the water as they attempted to snare insects—this was about as close as I got:





The swallows tended to not stay on the telephone wire for very long, and would frequently hope over to perch in nearby trees for a few minutes:





I couldn't have lined them up any better if I'd been trying; in a way, it almost looks like a multiple-exposure shot of one bird coming in for a landing:



A variety of backlit shots I thought came out pretty well:









And in this last one I just really liked how you can see the swallow's feet reaching out as it prepares to land: