You may NEVER see this bird - using photography for beautiful memories of Endangered wildlife species...

HIVE + Photography - what a powerful way to preserve lovely memories of some beautiful species that are endangered. I request you to support and spread this message far and wide.

Of course, while these clicks will serve as memories of the species after it becomes extinct, my fond hope is that through some beautiful clicks and slogans, we can spread awareness about protection of these endangered species and avoid their extinction.

While I typically do not use slogans or captions, I have always been inspired by @castleberrys way of using slogans and captions sometimes to convey a strong message. So - in this post, I am going to provide a caption for the pictures with a message to help save the endangered Black-bellied tern.

It is becoming rarer and rarer to see the Black-bellied tern now. The species is endangered due to many reasons but prominently due to loss of habitat, pollution in lakes and rivers etc.

I happened to see one lone black-bellied tern and managed to get some lovely images after spending 2-3 hours.

Help spread awareness to protect the Black-bellied tern from extinction

The Black-bellied tern is a fast bird which flies low over water bodies. It twists and turns suddenly as it keep an eye on fishes in the water and insects.

It is quite difficult to pan with the bird at high speed and capture an image of it in flight. I had to try with 100s of images before I got this nice one in flight... After hundreds of images of one or the other wings cut in the frame, or out of focus shots, seeing this image was ecstatic for me...

Help! I am an endangered species!

I then kept observing the bird as it went about it's daily routine. I managed to find a rock on which it sat for rest once in a while and captured the following clicks...

Help me survive - don't pollute the lakes

Here I come - please provide me with a safe environment

I am beutiful - please don't let me get extinct

I want to spread my wings - please protect my habitat

Hope you like this lovely bird and will help to support it's preservation.

These clicks were a major photography challenge too. I had to experiment a lot to capture the pictures of this fast flying bird with unpredictable twist and turns in flight.

I used the following settings for capturing flight shots:

• ISO: 100 (Kept ISO low to avoid over exposure on the white parts of the bird)
• Shutter 1/4000 (to capture and freeze fast flying motion)
• Aperture: 7.1 (to keep as much of the bird in focus as possible)
• Hand held and panning with the bird to keep full bird in frame as it flew

It was all hard work but when I see the results, I feel immensely satisfied.

What do you think ? Was it all worth it? Have you attempted or would you attempt anything like this in photography? If so, please share your experience in comments.*

Please comment freely and let me know your opinion. I will try to bring many different types of wildlife photos/macro/Astro posts to the community. Feedback and comments are welcome,. I am still learning many techniques and always value feedback from experts in this community.

Have a nice day everyone. Cheers!