Feeding Time for the Fledgling

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Fledgling Barn Swallow being fed.

Yesterday I walked the section of the Kennebunk Bridle Trail on either side of Rout 9 looking for Dragonflies. The bugs were few and far between. However it is fledgling time at the bridge over the unnamed creek that flows into the Mousam through the marsh on the ocean side of the the road. Barn Swallow fledglings rest on the warm stores of the bridge each year, and the adults hunt over the creek and Marsh and come back, not often enough for the fledglings, but often.

I managed to catch this sequence at 1200mm equivalent (full 600mm optical plus 2x digital extender) on the Olympus OM-D E-M10 with 75-300mm zoom. In this case the adult landed for a split second next to the fledgling, but often it seems the parent makes the pass while still in flight. The touch on the stone was so brief, that without photographic evidence, I might have taken this for hovering feed as well.

Processed in Snapseed on my tablet and assembled into the panel in Pixlr Express.

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