“Wouldn’t it have been lovely to find one with wings?”
Terry McKenna was photographing in a natural reserve near his house when he came across a chiffchaff, a bird he’d been trying to photograph. He prepared his camera and took a picture, excited. However, the small bird decided to take flight as he geared up for a second shot and squeezed the shutter button.
McKenna understood the photo may be a stunning shot of a bird in flight, but he didn’t think it was likely.
McKenna told The Dodo, “I was not at all convinced that I’d managed to obtain the photo.”
McKenna later discovered the photograph while going through his photos. It was an image of a bird in flight, however the bird didn’t seem to have any wings.
McKenna had managed to capture the bird at exactly the right moment, when he appeared to be a wingless bird hovering in midair. McKenna wasn’t thrilled with the photo, but he was glad he’d gotten a chance to take it in the first place.
“I was astonished that I had a photograph at all,” she says “McKenna explained. “I wasn’t sure if the bird was even in the frame because it happened so rapidly.”
McKenna felt the photo was hilarious and shared it online so that everyone else could enjoy it as well, which they did. McKenna’s goal was to photograph a Chiffchaff, which he accomplished. In certain ways, yes.
“I’d been trying for a while to acquire a shot of a small chiffchaff in flight,” says the photographer. McKenna expressed herself on Facebook. “Wouldn’t it have been lovely to find one with wings?”