When I was at Viera Wetlands on Martin Luther King Day this past week, there were thousands of Tree Swallows. The longer the day went on, the more there were. Just after noon, they clouded the sky when they gathered. I think they were maybe just arriving from points north as there was a lot of jockeying around any likely nest hole (and there are a lot of potential nest holes at Viera). I put the SX50HS in Sports Mode and shot many sequences of the action around the various palm and pine snags. I can not really say for sure what I was seeing…territorial conflict?…early stages of courtship?…only that whatever it was it was beautiful. There is almost nothing so agile or so graceful as a swallow in flight. If it is not the visual inspiration for ballet, then it ought to be.

These images are cropped slightly from full frame, as I zoomed back to 500mm equivalent field of view to follow the action, and the snags were well out in the ponds, but the quality holds up well. SX50HS. Sports Mode. f5.6 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 250. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.

And for the Sunday thought. I can never figure out how any human being can be unmoved by nature. I find it hard to believe that anyone who is remotely clinging to any kind of spiritual life could look at swallows swarming around a snag in their aerial dance, and not feel the stirrings of wonder. I can not believe they are not lifted at least a little out of themselves and set free in some corner of their souls to soar with the swallows. I can not believe that the intensity of those little lives in such close and intricate interaction…so fiercely independent and yet so coordinated, so synchronized, so responsive to each other that their flight looks to us to have been choreographed…does not awaken awe in any human being.

Happy Sunday!