Action shots are impressive – and rightly so, as they can be extremely difficult to capture. In wildlife photography, they require knowledge of animal behaviour so you can anticipate what will happen. Animals are often quite predictable, and have set behaviours that they do before they do something else.

During our week away Dad and I  braved icy winds and a a bit of rain to get some good photos of White-Fronted Terns (Sterna striata). By letting them get used to our presence, we were able to slowly move forward to get nice, full-frame images of them. They were perched on rocks at the waters edge, preening and dozing, and were very tolerant of us. Every now and then one would take off, and after watching for a little while, we could see that just prior to launching, they would get a little bit shifty and stretch out their wings. The enabled us to capture the moment of their launch, by watching for this behaviour, and being prepared for the subsequent flight.

Here’s the wing-stretch. Unfortunately in this instance I cut off the wings of the Tern as it launched!

This individual was looking shifty, so I waited for them to stretch their wings, and then got the below image just as they launched.

Most were in fairly fresh alternate plumage, with nice long tail streamers that made for pleasing lines in flight images.

So: observation is the best way to learn animal behaviour, which is extremely useful in capturing the shots you want! Good reflexes help too, and the best way to improve those is practice.