House martins and swallows are, generally speaking, incredibly fast aerial acrobats. This—combined with their small size—makes it extremely difficult to photograph them in flight. Fortunately, I discovered a puddle where they were evidently gathering nesting material; consequently, they arrived in droves—lingering briefly before taking flight again. Unfortunately, this puddle is located on private property, behind a fence, which meant I had to shoot from a higher vantage point and from a distance. This was far from ideal; despite having good lighting and a fast shutter speed, an ISO setting of 3000 proved too high to capture fine details. As a result, I ended up with nothing but heavily cropped images of small, noisy birds. I plan to stop by again today to see if I can obtain permission to enter the grounds, allowing me to work from a closer distance and capture better perspectives.