Every few years various species of birds come spilling out of the far north into more southerly locations in mass. Most of these birds are specialists, species who are so finely tuned to life in the boreal and arctic world but whose survival rests upon finite food resources. In the far north, where the perils of winter dictate all, when natural boom-and-bust cycles occur, the populations of species as diverse as great gray owls, boreal owls, northern hawk owls, snow owls, black-backed woodpeckers, three-toed woodpeckers, pine siskins, white-winged crossbills, evening grosbeaks, and boreal chickadees, ebb and flow with those cycles. And when a bust occurs, when that food becomes scarce, these birds will make a mass exodus from their circum-boreal haunts by the tens of thousands in what is known as an irruption.

This year, the winter of 2024/2025 has proven to be one of the biggest irruptions for both great gray owls and boreal owls in over a decade. And in Episode 25 of the PhotoWILD Podcast, Jared Lloyd and Annalise Kaylor discuss the science behind the irruption and how wildlife photographers can use this knowledge to set themselves up to photograph one of the greatest bird photography opportunities across the Northern Hemisphere.

But just because the owls are easy to find, if you know where to look, doesn’t mean creating amazing photographs is easy. Secretive forest owls such as the great gray owl are some of the best camouflaged species on Earth. And making this species stand out from environment is one of the biggest challenges wildlife photographers face when working with these birds.

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https://photowildworkshops.com

In season one of the PhotoWILD Podcast, we talked about how we prefer not to use camouflage in the field, relying instead upon our body language and behavior to help keep animals calm. However, there are times in which camouflage is a necessity in wildlife photography. Whether it’s working with animals that experience hunting pressure or photographing sensitive situations such as nests and dens that require the upmost stealth and concealment for the protection of the animals, camo is a tool that should be used strategically.

Not all camouflage is created equally, however. Most of it is completely useless for wildlife photographers.  The vast majority of mass marketed camouflage works only inside of one extremely specific situation. Outside of this scenario, it works against you.

In this episode we take a look at the art of concealment, how predators make a living by staying hidden from prey and how wildlife photographers can emulate the tactics of predators to get closer to wildlife.

But to understand how and when to use camouflage first requires an understanding of how our subjects experience the world. Humans are unique in how we see the world around us. Very few animals see what we see. And to assume that what looks “good” to us will offer concealment from other animals is a recipe for failure in the field.

https://photowildmagazine.com

For birds, wind dictates everything

Studying wind speed and direction can have dramatic impacts on your photography if you pair that knowledge with an understanding of light and your backgrounds

In order to move beyond creating cliche and trite images of birds in flight, we have to begin exorcizing creative compositional strategies

Sometimes the most beautiful images come about as we are forced to overcome challenges in the field

Kicking off season 2 of the PhotoWILD Podcast, Jared and Annalise discuss spending a week immersing themselves in the world of tundra swans along the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Each winter, around 100,000 tundra swans descend upon this region after migrating from their breeding grounds along the edge of the Arctic Ocean and Bering Sea, creating one of the greatest wildlife spectacles of the eastern United States. The swan migration can offer wildlife photographers non-stop birds in flight opportunities with these visitors from the arctic each year.

In season 1, Jared and Annalise discussed photographing birds in flight on several different episodes from how artificial intelligence is changing the face of flight photography, to rarely considered impact that contrasting colors have on the success of birds in flight.

But mastering birds in flight requires so much more than just sophisticated autofocus systems and matching the background to the color of the bird. In fact, of all the many facets of this style of photography it is perhaps understanding the interplay of wind direction, light direction, and backgrounds that will do more for your bird in flight compositions than anything else.   

Bird in Flight Episodes from Season 1

Episode 4: Pelagic Seabirds in Panama

https://www.photowildmagazine.com/episode-20

Episode 16: Artificial Intelligence and how it's revolutionizing birds in flight

https://www.photowildmagazine.com/podcast/episode-16-artificial-intelligence-and-how-it-is-revolutionizing-birds-in-flight

Articles

The Best Lenses for Birds in Flight

https://photowildmagazine.com/free-articles/the-best-lenses-for-birds-in-flight

Ethology is the study of animal behavior. As wildlife photographers, what could be more important to our success in the field? Things like autofocus systems and exposure, while important, are the most rudimentary aspects of the craft. The ability to create in-focus photographs that are properly exposed only means you are now able to properly use the equipment in your hand. This doesn’t translate into a compelling or beautiful photograph any more than learning how to hold a paintbrush and mix paints allows you to create the next great masterpiece.

In this episode of the PhotoWILD podcast, we discuss animal behavior, the importance of educating yourself on the subject, and how understanding our subjects allows us to anticipate their behavior and set our selves up for success in the field.

Understanding our subjects, their behavior, their ecology, what makes them tick, and therefore where we can find them and photograph them, is the secret sauce of wildlife photography. To put it simply, if you can’t consistently and predictably find and approach wildlife on their terms, then it really doesn’t matter how sophisticated your autofocus system is or how expensive your lens was because you are going to have a very difficult time being a wildlife photographer if you can’t put yourself in front of wildlife.

While the importance of understanding animal behavior cannot be overstated, so to is understanding how our own behavior is being interpreted by animals. Every time we step into the field, forest, tundra, or whatever habitat or ecosystem you wish to substitute into this statement, we are entering into a two way conversation with every sentient creature within eye, ear, or smell (?) shot.

This episode discusses all of this and more. And for that reason, it may be one of the most important episodes we have done thus far.

PhotoWILD Magazine

The PhotoWILD Podcast is brought to you by PhotoWILD Magazine, where we take the discussion in these episodes much further. If you are serious about your wildlife photography, if you are someone who realizes this is not just a hobby but a way of life, then PhotoWILD Magazine is for you. 

photowildmagazine.com

Workshops

Would you like to join us in the field? We offer small group hands-on field workshops designed to not only put you in front of incredible opportunities, but to help you take your wildlife photography to the next level. 

photowildworkshops.com

Highlights

Photographing birds in flight happens one of two ways: incidentally or purposefully. If you are serious about creating these types of photographs, then you need to set yourself up for success first.

Eagles come together in huge aggregations based around the two primary driving forces on Earth: food and sex.

It’s these aggregations that give us the best opportunity for photographing eagles, especially in flight.

To be successful at photographing birds in flight, we need to simplify everything we are doing.

Using exposure settings like aperture priority or auto-ISO sets us up for failure with birds in flight.

Manual exposure makes everything easier.

In Episode 21, Jared and Annalise discuss photographing one of the most iconic species of birds across North America: the bald eagle. Large, majestic, and one of the most acrobatic species of raptors in the Western Hemisphere, bald eagles spill out of the northern latitudes in the fall and winter as they follow their food sources south across the continent. Come late winter, the whole process happens in reverse. As such, bald eagles often arrive in mass aggregations that can total hundreds, if not thousands of these birds in different places. And one particular area of Alaska plays home to the second largest concentration of eagles in North America.

After spending ten days photographing eagles on the wing, creating nearly 150,000 photographs each, your hosts discuss what it takes to return home with such high success rates with birds in flight. Cutting through all the confusion about best practices, Jared explains his methodology for simplifying the process to set yourself up for success.

Want to Go Further? 

Manual Makes Everything Easier

The Best Lens for Birds in Flight

Want to join us on a workshop to photograph eagles? 

Epic Eagles of Alaska

Mastering Birds in Flight

In the upcoming Spring 2024 issue of PhotoWILD Magazine, we start our series of feature articles on Mastering Birds in Flight. From breaking down the best autofocus settings to field techniques that are guaranteed to significantly improve your success rate, this series will be a tour de force of all things birds in flight. 

Learn More

things hummingbirds

Hummingbirds are some of the most extraordinary families of birds in the world whose natural history often defies belief

Understanding the natural history of these species is important for trying to sell photographs of these birds as 99% of photographs we see of hummingbirds are created with non-native species in situations that would never occur in the wild

Understanding how to use flash will dramatically elevate your bird photography, especially when working with hummingbirds

Flash is one of the most important creative tools we wield as visual artists

Using flash to think outside the box can elevate your photography to new levels

The lost episode has been found!

In this show, Jared Lloyd and Annalise Kaylor discuss photographing hummingbirds 8,000 feet up in the cloud forest of Panama. Far from being diminutive and delicate little birds, hummingbirds are some of the fiercest, most territorial, and biologically extraordinary species of avifauna in the world. Did you know the Aztec god of war was named after and depicted as a hummingbird? Did you know the cold weather of mountains helped to drive the evolution of hummingbirds? Did you know that at any given moment, hummingbirds are no more than 20 minutes away from starvation and are forced to go into a state of torpor (true hibernation) every single night to survive! And when it comes to biological diversity, Panama plays home to roughly 1/4 of all hummingbirds in the world.

Photographing hummingbirds in the tropics can be one of the most impossible tasks you will ever encounter as a wildlife photographer - if done wrong. As anyone who has laced up their boots and trekked down a muddy trail into the emerald kingdom of the rainforest can attest, wild encounters with these birds are extraordinarily fleeting and often mere flashes of color in the mid-canopy. For this reason, 99% of hummingbird photography occurs at purpose built setups with anywhere between 1 - 5 off-camera flashes.

Professional nature photographers the world over utilize field set-ups, or outdoor studios, for creating images that would not be possible otherwise. However, far too often, non-native species are used to create these photographs. While hummingbirds are only found in the Americas, often we see them depicted with flowers from South Africa such as the bird of paradise because these are planted around eco lodges where most of these photographs are created. Likewise, species of poison frogs that may be rare and endemic to a small isolated region of Central America, are more often than not, depicted on flowers from Asia such as the Asian ginger. How we create field set-ups matter. From how we work with the animals to keep them safe to ensuring that we creating photographs that actually tell the unique story of the species within our photographs, a lot of thought and intention should go into how these set-ups are created.

Flash is an important component of photographing not only just hummingbirds but most wildlife when working in the dark recesses of the neotropical rainforests. While flash is a staple of so many genres of photography, when it comes to nature photography it is the least understood aspect of the craft. But it shouldn’t be this way. Learning how to utilize flash will revolutionize your photography in so many ways.

Interested in learning more about the workshops we do in Panama?

https://www.photowildworkshops.com/cloud-forest-panama-workshop

https://www.photowildworkshops.com/panama-wildlife-photography-workshop

The PhotoWILD Podcast is a production of PhotoWILD Magazine. Not familiar with us? https://photowildmagazine.com

 Key Takeaways

Animals live or die by the ways in which they respond to changing weather

Wildlife photographers can dramatically increase their success rate in the field by understanding how animals are going to behave, feed, move, and react to weather

Barometric pressure is often the most reliable predictor of wildlife behavior in the winter months

Let’s face it: if you can’t find animals to photograph then you are going to have a very tough time being a wildlife photographer. It doesn’t matter how sophisticated your autofocus system is or how expensive your lenses are. Without wildlife, without the ability to predictably find and approach animals, you can’t be a wildlife photographer.

In this episode, Jared and Annalise discuss one of the most important predictors of wildlife behavior in the winter months: weather. But more than just snow, more than the cold, it’s the barometric pressure that photographers need to understand. This transcends latitudes as barometric pressure impacts wildlife from the tropics to the tundra.

This is one of those topics that needs to be discussed but never is within the wildlife photography community. Jared and Annalise discuss photographing great gray owls and gray wolves in the middle of hunt to explain the importance of this concept on their photography.

If this is a topic you are interested learning more about, not only are there several free articles about weather and wildlife you can find on the website, Jared published an in-depth feature article in the Winter 24 issue of PhotoWILD Magazine about this very topic. Subscribers have access to all the back issues, so make sure you check out that issue. https://photowildmagazine.com

In this episode, Jared and Annalise discuss their time photographing rare and endemic species in the cloud forests of Panama. Forget everything you think of about the tropics when it comes to exploring the forests that grow at 8,000 feet in the mountains. Dripping with moss and bromeliads, the high mountain peaks are like islands in the sky. Each mountain holds its own menagerie of endemic species and thanks to the elevation, each and everyone must be cold adapted despite being so close to the equator. 

Working from purpose built blinds to photograph species of birds that are rarely seen, let alone photographed, an ornate hawk eagle made an unexpected and dramatic cameo appearance in the forest nearby. Jared and Annalise discuss the challenges of suddenly finding themselves confronted with such an extraordinary opportunity in the deep forest. One of those challenges is getting past, psychologically, the urge to create knee jerk documentary photographs. Despite the rarity of a situation, composition and story are still of upmost importance - likely even more so that normally from the perspective of making a living with your photography. And in this episode, the hosts discuss how they worked to pull together creative compositions to move past the oh-so-boring bird on a stick composition, and instead create images that go beyond the trite and cliche to tell stories that sell to magazines. 

Jared and Annalise offer workshops to the cloud forest of Panama. If you would like to know more about this opportunity, check out: https://www.photowildworkshops.com/cloud-forest-panama-workshop

On this episode, Jared and Annalise talk about photographing the moose rut inside Denali National Park. Come September, once the national park bus system shuts down, wildlife photographers can drive the first 30 miles of the park. This gives us access to the prime moose rut area as well as caribou, lynx, wolves, ptarmigan, spruce grouse, and so much more. The only catch is, you have to camp. 

99% of the moose rut takes place at night. When we find and photograph moose this time of the year during the day, these situations are truly the very end of the bell curve of activity. It's sort of like "last man standing" at a bar. Let the sun hit the valley or forest floor and the moose begin bedding down or wander off to cooler climes for the day. And this means that for those photographers who are comfortable with working in low light with extremely high ISO settings, we are going to find our best opportunities just before and just after sunrise. 

Jared and Annalise discuss both the biology of the moose rut and exactly how they are able to create sellable photographs of the moose rut in Denali despite having to concentrate so much of their efforts to extremely low light situations. If you're someone who struggles with noise in their wildlife photographs, you don't want to miss this episode. 

In this episode, Jared and Annalise do a deep dive into how camera companies are adding Artificial Intelligence to our autofocus systems and the ways in which this is truly revolutionizing wildlife photography. Making several treks by boat to a horned puffin colony this summer to experiment with the new autofocus modes that capitalize on this new technology, Jared and Annalise discuss how this has dramatically improved action photography like birds in flight.

Photographing puffins in flight is a challenge for every photographer. Small and fast, flying at nearly 60mph, there is nothing easy about keeping up with and capturing in focus images of puffins in flight. However, with these new AF area modes, success rates are skyrocketing to 90% or better.

Key Takeaways  

Every camera manufacturer today has introduced Artificial Intelligence to their autofocus systems, but this is largely limited to flagship models. The one exception to this at the moment is the Sony A7RV and the Nikon Z8.

Understanding how to use these new AI autofocus modes will dramatically improve your birds in flight photography.

The real revolutionary aspect to this is the fact that these settings now allow us to focus on the things that actually make a great photograph: light, backgrounds, composition, etc.

This episode discusses a number of birds in flight techniques throughout the entire show.

Are you ready to finally master birds in flight? Jared and Annalise have two spaces open on their Epic Eagles workshop in Alaska next winter. Find out more here: https://www.jaredlloyd.com/epic-eagles