During a recent visit to Hendrie Valley Sanctuary at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton Ontario, I had the opportunity to photograph a number of terns as they were flying, fishing and juggling their catch.
NOTE: Click on images to enlarge

It was a productive morning and at times there were several terns flying in oval patterns near the perimeter of the pond simultaneously. After taking a few images of them in flight I began to concentrate on capturing them either fishing, or with fish in their mouths.

Terns signal in advance when they are going to dive to fish. They will abruptly change their flying pattern by suddenly banking or hovering above a target fish.

Once committed, they tuck their wings in towards their bodies and plummet into the water. Catching this action before the tern hits the surface of the water can be a bit of a challenge as their decent is very rapid and hard to track.

Sometimes the action happens so quickly that you have to focus your camera on the surface of the water and guess where the bird will enter.

The terns quickly surface and usually explode from the surface of the water, with a prize in their beaks if successful.


After catching a fish, terns eat while in flight to ensure their meal is not stolen from them by other terns or gulls. Fish are usually caught and held at right angles to the bird’s beak when it surfaces. This necessitates some juggling in mid-air so the tern can realign the fish so it can be swallowed head first.

Luckily I was shooting at 15fps in AF-C with my Nikon 1 V2 and I was able to capture the above tern flipping its catch in mid-air. As you can see in the next three consecutive frames sometimes the tern will lose its catch in mid-air and need to recover it.



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Delightful as always!
Thanks Linda!
Tom
Wow. Super nice images.
Glad you liked them Anders!
Tom
A great set Thomas!
They’re tricky birds unless they hover , swooping around constantly.
You did well!
Amazing photos as usual. Action very well captured.
I appreciate your positive comment Srikanth!
Tom