PAUL’S comment

As well as photographing birds already in flight, it was also interesting to try to capture the moment they took off.

A fast shutter speed of 1/800 sec froze the motion, but the key was to anticipate and start shooting just before it happened to take into account the slight lag time both in human reaction and also the camera’s first shot. We used the silent continuous shutter mode so as not to distract the birds or the other guests.