From time to time (which is most of the time I’m outside with my camera), I try to practice getting photos of birds in flight. It’s not always easy; you need a higher shutter speed to make sure the bird is sharp and not blurry, you need to be able to somewhat anticipate the bird’s movements so you can track him with the camera, and you need to know how to override your camera’s autoexposure modes when it get fooled as you pan from bright skies to dark foliage.
Birds are small all by themselves which means they’re really small in a camera viewfinder. That means you a good telephoto lens to allow you to get a good closeup or else you’ll need some type of a blind to allow you to get physically close while not scaring the birds away.
I was using my blind for this photo. That blind being my kitchen window photographing the activities at the bird feeder about 30 ft outside the window. (The screen was previously removed and the window was open.) I caught this little guy flying between the ground under the feeder up to the feeder. I made several tries to get the timing right and this is the closest I was able to come.
This is a Red-bellied Woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus) which has a slightly more red color on his belly which you can’t see in this image.