When shooting at a high frame rate to capture the action, you will end up with many images. Even a short burst of a few second will generate a lot of images for you to review. If you have hundreds of similar images of birds in flight, it is often the position of the wings that make or break an image. If you are reviewing your images to cull them and everything else is more or less equal, watch the wing movement. We want the wings to stand out. So avoid picking images where the wings seems to disappear into the body of the bird. Show those wings.

Secondly, we always need to see the eye of the bird. Therefore, eliminate any images where the wings obscure the eye. Wings make the bird fly. Wings are often where the action is. So show the action. Show wing movement. Show them stretched out, wide open. Wing positions work equally well above the bird or below the bird.

Wings parallel to the bird's body can work as long as they are clearly visible and defined.

In this case, the wing tips make the difference. Without the upward pointing wing tips the bird's right wing would have seem merged with the body and thus not be that visible.

          Lastly, make sure that the bird's head does not overlap with the furthest wing. There needs to be separation between the head and the wing. They should not merge. Now if the wing and the head are different colors (distinctly different) you may still get away with it. But it is still best to have a bit of space between the hand and the wing.

          I hope that these tips will help you successfully cull your bird images to leave you with only the best ones.