On our first afternoon at Bernardo Wildlife Area during my Better than Bosque Workshop in New Mexico, there were impressive numbers of Western Meadowlarks flying back and forth along the road over the corn fields. Most were high, with the occasional bird flying past at eye level. I watched this individual head straight at me and was thrilled with my results - but I must admit two things:

The auto-focus of the Sony a9 Mark III is mind-blowing. You still have to “drive” the camera, but it won’t fail you when things line up!
Shooting at 120fps meant having the best possible wing positions and not settling for a mistimed image.

**Western Meadowlark in flight** **head-on**(*Sturnella neglecta,* Sturnelle de l'Ouest, WEME) from my Better than Bosque workshop. Bernardo Wildlife Area, Bernardo, New Mexico, USA. Image Copyright ©Christopher Dodds. Sony a9 III Mirrorless camera & Sony FE 600mm f/4 G Master OSS Lens with Sony FE 2X Teleconverter @1,200mm ISO 2,500, f/8 @ 1/5,000s. Manual exposure. 95% full-frame image.

There have been impressive numbers of Western Meadowlarks in and around the corn fields where we photograph the Cranes, Geese and Raptors during my Better than Bosque Workshop. This is a full-frame image made as this bird changed direction while I followed it through my lens. 120fps makes getting the wing position right, but I had to keep the erratic flyer in the viewfinder - smile!