Bird Photography along the Connecticut River | Part 1: Photographing Tree Swallows with the Nikon Z9

Today I am out along the flood plains of the Connecticut River with plans to photograph waterfowl. I quickly changed gears when I found hundreds of tree swallows which had just migrated north, flying low over the water. I knew I wanted to try to get some footage of this interesting behavior so I set up along the banks and started shooting. I share some of my tips and tricks as well as camera settings on how I was able to capture photos and videos of these fast moving birds. Thanks for watching!

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this video where I share the footage I was able to capture of ring-necked ducks I found during my outing as well.

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Main Cameras:
Nikon Z9:
Nikon 600mm F/4 FL ED VR:
Nikon Z6 II:

Vlogging Setup:
Nikon Z30:
Nikon NIKKOR Z DX 12-28mm PZ VR
Hohem iSteady MT2 Kit Camera Stabilizer with AI Tracker

Microphone:
RODE shotgun videomic

Other Lenses:
Nikon Nikkor Z 100-400 F4.5-5.6 VR S
Nikon Nikkor Z 24-70 F/4 S

GoPro Hero 10

Tripod:
Benro Mach3 2 Series Aluminum tripod
Manfrotto Video Head MVH502AH
K&F Concept Aluminum Tripod:

Camera Bag:
f-stop Anja 37L
f-stop ICU (Internal Camera Unit) - Pro Large Camera Bag Insert and Cube
f-stop ICU (Internal Camera Unit) - Slope Medium Camera Bag Insert and Cube
Gatekeeper Straps

Blind and Camouflage:
Tragopan V6 Photo Blind
Tragopan ghille blanket
3D came clothing

Accessories:
Exascend 1TB CFExpress Vigor card
FREEWELL V2 VND/CPL Filter Kit
11.5” Camping Stool
Lexar Professional CFexpress 128 GB Card
Lexar Professional CFexpress 64 GB Card
Lexar Professional 64 GB SDXC Card
Lexar Professional 128 GB SDXC Card
Watson EN-EL15c batteries
LensCoat Rain Cover
LensCoat lens cover

About Me:
I am a full time wildlife and nature photographer in New England. I hope to use my experience and education in wildlife sciences and ecology to help share the beauty of the natural world around us. It is my goal to use my videos and photos to share mu experiences and inspire others to appreciate and feel a connection to nature.

[induliskalnins]

Slow-mo tracked them…the stills captured them…bravo!

[naturallyadriftphotoadvent]

Your patience sure paid off! The photos you took of these very challenging little birds are beautiful!

[MookieMc]

Always enjoy your videos and your overall presentation. You make that Nikon gear shine.

As a way to further set your videos apart from the others, I think it would be interesting to know some key statistics that are often not shared or looked at, and it may help others interested in nature photography and about the expectations...

At the end of the episode it would be interesting to hear or read something like this: "I took 450 photos during this outing and made 23 video clips (or used an external monitor and recorder). Out of the 450 photos, 265 were usable and out of those 265, I decided to further edit and tone 57 photos."

I think a lot of people interested in this type of photography have no idea how difficult it is to capture the moment in time and how many photos a photographer takes in each type of environment.

Thanks for the amazing images, and please keep creating!

[bobrutan]

Very good footage of a difficult subject to capture! Thanks for sharing...

[RichardCookphotography]

Great video Todd. Great job filming the swallows m. Beautiful birds. Well done 👍

[vogle]

Great video Todd good work with your camera skills

[FaithTechPhoto]

Awesome slow motion videos of the Swallows. can't imagine how many GB of memory you filled up to capture those amazing shots!, I was just up there this evening and some of the water foul were in the woods, not too many compared to last spring.

[photographermission]

Great job I subscribed because I want to be a photographer myself

[MatthewBalnis-ed]

Thank you for the video. Hope you are right about the reason for the lack of ducks this year ( too much rain ). I'm not seeing any ducks anywhere and I'm out there a lot. Weird if not scary.

[johnking]

Great bird photography! It was so nice seeing the Swallows hunting insects.

[Kellysher]

New to the channel. Canon shooter and been shooting for about 2 years now. It would be helpful to see the settings for the photos. I shoot mostly handheld, but seeing what the settings are is a helpful learning tool for me. Beautiful work!

[Mikedegot]

Saw Tree Swallows in PA recently. The place I went had bird houses near the parking lot so the swallows considered anyone in the parking lot to be a problem and were dive bombing me. Stand still long enough and they settle down. They looked like a dark teal to me but show up more blue in my images.

[michellefussel]

Beautiful vid! Can't wait for part 2

[edwardstewart]

I'm curious, how did you get those low angles of the wood duck using the tri-pod?