Enough with camera experimenting in the office at the hangar. It is a good place for that because it is air conditioned. It was time to go outside and find something else to photograph. There were no airplanes flying around but there were birds. A lot of people take photos of birds. Some because they are birders. Some because the birds are pretty. Some (like me) because birds are a target of opportunity.

There were a bunch of swallows on the power lines on the west side of the hangars. They were well illuminated by the early morning sun. So I had a go at them with the Powershot SX 70. I figured that I should zoom into them as much as possible (1360 mm equivalent). The bigger the image in the frame, the better for editing. The SX70 is a very light camera. It is hard to hand hold at long focal lengths. I ended up leaning against the building which went a long way to steadying things. A fast shutter speed it also a plus. So I got a couple frames which were not bad. A little dose of Topaz Sharpen and the image was good enough for a decent size picture. Even at 800 X 533 pixels it is OK on the screen.

An important word about swallows. There are lots of them out at the airport. They seem to be particularly busy early in the morning. They eat flying bugs including mosquitoes. There are no mosquitoes out there to bite us even though there is a bunch of places that have standing water on occasion. I think they are doing a darn good job. Hats off to the swallows. It is said they eat their weight in bugs every day.