I had a great couple of hours early this morning with the Bee-eaters, a really common bird here. The species that I am seeing is the Blue-tailed Bee-eater. You can see them on just about every outing and hear them passing over head very regularly. Being in a situation to photograph a species like this is the reason that I came all the way to Sri Lanka. It took a lot of patience and persistence to get the shots. It's not always easy to be in just the right spot for a good shot, in fact it rarely is to be honest. Part of my success ( if I have acheived any of course) is to be in the right position which is a big skill. There were several Bea-eaters on the beach which seems to be a good place to see them particularly when they are feeding. I had noticed that one particular bird had a favoured perch quite low down and I managed to manoeuvre myself in to a position just in front of it and then gradually I moved myself nearer and nearer. Then I set the camera up for the in-flight shots by trying to get the very fastest shutter speed possible. This meant that I had to choose a high ISO which can make images look a bit grainy if you are not careful. I was very excited when I realised that I had achieved some success. It's always rewarding to set out to do something and then get a result. In the end I finished up with about 50 shots of the bird alighting on this perch. Very quickly when I came back to my room I had a look and selected these.
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