Planning a picture

Just occasionally I manage to visualise a picture long before I get the chance to take it and then actually get to go and do it.   This picture falls into that category. 

I had a mental picture of a group of birds in silhouette flying across a glacier.  The opportunity was on the west coast of Svalbard where we had gone to watch a colony of little auks. 

Little auks build their nests underground, and every now and again a group would race out from under rocks and fly off round the bay, before coming back into the rocks to wait for the next swarm. 

Eventually I found a suitable perch, close to the colony, where the usual flight around the bay would lead the birds across a suitably icey backdrop.  After that it was just a matter of sitting wait for the sunlight to strike the glacier as the birds was coming back into the colony, and then pressing the shutter.