Guy's Photo Of Bird Flying Majestically Doesn't Quite Go As Planned

“It would have been nice to have found one with wings!”

Terry McKenna was at a nature reserve near his home taking photos when he suddenly noticed a chiffchaff, a type of bird he’d been trying to capture on camera. Excited, he readied his camera and took a picture. But as he set up for a second shot and pressed the shutter button, the little bird decided to take flight.

bird without wings
Terry McKenna

McKenna knew it was possible that the photo might be a beautiful shot of a bird in flight — but not very probable.

“I was not at all confident that I'd managed to get the shot,” McKenna told The Dodo.

McKenna went through his photos later and found the shot. It was indeed a picture of a bird in flight — except that the bird somehow didn’t have any wings.

bird without wings
Terry McKenna

McKenna had managed, accidentally, to photograph the bird at the exact moment he looked as if he was a wingless bird suspended in midair. The picture wasn’t what McKenna had expected, but he was just happy he’d gotten a shot in the first place.

“I was very surprised that I had a picture at all," McKenna said. "It happened so quickly that I really didn't know if the bird was even in the frame.”

McKenna thought the picture was incredibly amusing and posted it online, so everyone else could be amused too, and they absolutely were. McKenna’s goal had been to photograph a Chiffchaff, and he succeeded. Sort of.

“I had been trying for sometime to get a photograph of a little chiffchaff in flight.” McKenna wrote on Facebook. “It would have been nice to have found one with wings!”