Swallows are the most acrobatic flyers I’ve ever seen and the most difficult to capture. They are small, very speedy and swoop and dive quickly in all directions making it a bird that I’ve only been able to capture as a small blur against the sky.
That is until this day when we were at the Hoover Dam park and caught them sitting in their nests that they are building all over the dam.
Cliff Swallow nests
Coming in with more supplies
Thinking I had captured all I was going to get of the swallows, we walked away looking for other birds when then this happened out of nowhere just where we happened to be standing! I have never seen these birds anywhere other than darting through the air (and as of this day in their nests) so this was a massive surprise and opportunity. I’m venturing a guess that this was their gathering some materials for their nests. Wish I had set a higher shutter speed but for a “finally” I’ve capture them, I’ll take it!
Teri 📷
Cliff Swallow Mud Mania
Mud and Go
Images by T.Dashfield Photography 
Perhaps you need to include a pack of birdseed in your camera bag. 🙂
Were they loud?
I have no desire to become a target for the birdies so no seeds for them! And they were a chirpy bunch!
I don’t know that I’ve ever seen the nests because they are usually hidden. Swallows are like little fighter jets.
Little fighter jets performing at an air show! 🙂
They are something else… aren’t they? At our London Bridge in Lake Havasu there are many many swallow nests. And the area underneath the nests… is quite undesirable!
I can only imagine! Fortunately here the area underneath the nests is where people can’t get to and over water.
Dams make good cliffs.
Nature adapts!
The top two pictures looks like our old place in Karnes City. We had plenty of those swallows there. Unfortunately, not here now.
At your old place as in on your property?
I find all swallows hard to capture. They never stay put. Chimney Swifts have arrived here in our neighborhood and I’ve never gotten a photo in the past 9 years. 😊
They are speedsters aren’t they? If they hadn’t stopped (???) in front of me I would still not have an image of them!
We had some flying all around us in Texas. They would land in front of the car, take off again before I could get my camera up. We were swarmed like something from Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds”. Never got the shot. 😊
Well done Amiga.
Gracias! I have since gotten a better catch of them which I will share one day.