Birds interact for a number of reasons and anticipating mid-air chases can yield some interesting and sometimes dramatic photographs. This article features 12 new images from 2 mid-air chases and discusses some simple observation techniques that can help anticipate mid-air chases.

Three of the most common reasons for mid-air chases are birds trying to steal food from one another… trying to protect their territory… and fending off other birds from their mates or their chicks.

I was observing a number of terns and gulls flying over a shallow pond at Hendrie Valley. One specific gull seemed to be particularly aggressive with the other birds in the area so I decided to focus my attention on it.

Over the next few minutes I observed it flying after other gulls and some of the terns. It didn’t seem to matter if the other birds had fish in their bills or not. Most of the time the aggressive gull never got that close to the other birds for more than a split second. It seemed to be trying to establish some territorial dominance over one section of the pond.

Once I had this understanding I began watching for other birds entering this air space and monitoring how the aggressive gull was reacting. It was behaving in a reasonably predictable manner flying aggressively towards other birds. I began panning with the aggressive gull as it did various loops around this section of the pond.

The next 8 consecutive images were captured when the aggressive gull started to pursue a tern. I was using Pro Capture L at 18 frames-per-second in continuous auto-focus. These 8 images illustrated were captured in less than 1/2 second. As is my standard practice when photographing birds-in-flight, I had Bird Detection AI Subject Tracking engaged, with one small auto-focus point active.

Using Pro Capture L enabled me to fully depress my shutter release after the desired behaviour had been observed. The files stored in temporary memory were then written to my memory card.

NOTE: Click on images to enlarge.

As noted earlier, mid-air chases are often a result of one bird trying to steal food from another one. The next four consecutive images were captured early in the morning about 15 minutes after sunrise at Hendrie Valley. Suffice to say the lighting was not ideal to photograph birds-in-flight.

I had just observed one gull dive down to the surface of the pond and catch a fish. I immediately looked around in the surrounding air space to see if another gull was flying in to try to steal the first bird’s catch. One gull made an abrupt mid-air flight correction and headed  towards the gull on the surface of the pond.

I immediately focused my camera on the gull on the surface of the pond and waited for the chase to erupt. Within a second or two the mid-air chase ensued and I was able to capture the next 4 consecutive images that follow.

It should be noted that my E-M1X estimated the distance to the  subject birds to be approximately 130 metres (~426 feet). These 4 images were captured using a focal length of 560 mm (efov 1120 mm) at ISO-6400. Given the less than ideal shooting conditions I was pleased with the resulting photographs. It took less than 1/4 of a second to capture these 4 images.

Regardless of the camera gear that you’re using, studying bird behaviour can go a long way to anticipating mid-air chases. Photographing even very common birds like gulls can produce interesting action images of mid-air chases.

Technical Note:

Photographs were captured handheld using camera gear as noted in the EXIF data. I used my standard settings for Pro Capture L, 10 Pre-Shutter Frames with my Frame Limiter turned off. I engaged a single, small auto-focus when using Bird Detection AI Subject Tracking. Images were produced from RAW files using my standard approach in post. This is the 1,217 article published on this website since its original inception in 2015.

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