Crazy Birds

Every so often I manage to photograph a bird flying at night while I photograph lightning. Since it's very dark when I usually photograph, the only way I know I've photographed the bird is by the shadow created by the bright flashes of the lightning. These flashes are usually fast enough to freeze the bird's motion, as is the case in the photo below. Since lightning often has many return strokes, I get a silhouette of the bird in several places along it's flight path. This photo is a (100% crop, as-is out of camera RAW) view of a bird flying between my camera and the lightning this past Saturday. I always wonder what these birds think about the lightning that is so close to them as they fly.

Beyond the novelty of this, it's more of a nuisance to me. If the timing is right, the bird will obstruct the lightning and ruin the shot (for me, at least). At pixel level it's interesting . . . but when viewing the whole photo they just end up looking like dust spots. I usually clone them out as I would a dust spot when they fall in between the lightning's path, as this one does. It happens more often that one might imagine, though usually I see this as birds fly around city lights to feed on insects.