Framing the blur

For much of early July, I found myself peering out from behind a camouflaged blind,

watching a small drama unfold on our outdoor deck. The star of this quiet spectacle was the Tickell’s blue flycatcher, a tiny bird with a cobalt head, cinnamon chest, and boundless energy. She had built her nest inside the hollow of one of our teak root bar stools—an unlikely cradle for the three eggs she was incubating.

Her comings and goings were swift, almost impulsive. From the boulder nearby, she would spring into flight—wings flaring and tail twitching—and dart back to the nest in a blur.

Photographing her felt like trying to catch lightning with chopsticks.

For anyone who’s ever tried to freeze a bird in motion, here’s what that entails: You shoot at an incredibly fast shutter speed—around 1/3200 of a second—just to stop the blur. Since she’s no more than three inches in length, I had to use a narrow aperture (f/8 or tighter) to ensure the entire bird would be in focus.

To get that reach from where I sat behind the blind, I used a 400mm prime lens with a teleconverter. The price for all this? Sky-high ISO settings, often touching 8000, which meant introducing digital noise that then had to be painstakingly cleaned up in post-processing.

Even with the right gear and settings, success was elusive.

For every image that worked, there were dozens that didn’t—motion blur, missed focus, awkward wing angles, or just the bird vanishing out of frame in the blink of an eye. And yet, a few moments of magic did come together: wings mid-beat, prey in beak, or that sharp, determined gaze locked on her destination.

These images are a reminder that nature doesn’t always offer itself neatly.

It challenges you to meet it on its terms—with patience, respect, and no small amount of trial and error.

In the end, it wasn’t the sharpest image I valued most—but the time spent watching, learning, and missing, again and again.