Making Babies

These tree swallows mated repeatedly for a good 5-10 minutes, giving me multiple opportunities. Unfortunately, this is the perch she chose (the post that supports their nesting box). I find it interesting that so many birds have this behavior in the male of grasping the neck feathers of the female when mating. I've seen it in ducks as well.

1Div, 500mm f4 ISL + 2.0TC, Jobu gimbal on RRS legs, f11, 1/1600, iso 500, aperture priority, -2/3 stop exposure compensation (I ended up adding it back in post processing). Processed in LR5 and CS6. Rotated to compensate for the non-upright post and some sky added into the resultant triangular areas left after a small amount of cropping. Final size is 12.1 MP of the original 16. Taken April 30th at 7:22 in our backyard.

Your comments and criticisms are always appreciated.

Thanks for looking,