The Landing

The sheer number of snow geese mesmerized me on a recent visit to Loess Bluffs National Wildlife Refuge.  I spent a little over three hours in northwest Missouri watching and listening to the flocks of birds.  It was an incredibly relaxing experience communing with nature. However, I found the pictures I was taking were not effectively capturing what I was experiencing.  So as I continued to relax and contemplate my predicament. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I remembered seeing images like the one above.  Now my objective became figuring out how such images are created before leaving the refuge.  

This is my first attempt at creating an image that combines a high-speed continuous capture of the Snow Geese spring migration back north.  Most of the geese had taken off around sunrise in search of food. A relatively large number were still hanging around at mid-day.  So I decided I wanted to create this sort of stacked composition. 

Officials at Loess Bluffs estimated that nearly 1,250,000 snow geese were at the refuge last week.  To capture my experience in one photo, I waited for a pair of geese to enter my field of vision.  Using a tripod, I set my camera to track and auto-focus on the pair using the low continuous shutter setting on my camera.  I was able to capture just under 250 images before my camera buffer filled up. 

I plan to continue working on refining my techniques. I’ll add further documentation and settings here so I’ll have important details for future reference.  Please let me know if you have any questions or share your thoughts below.