To be able to predict a bird’s flight path with at least some probability of success, you should first learn a few principles that will help you plan your images better.
The first is the principle of the nest. Birds usually take care of their offspring in a nest, and the parents frequently leave and return from it to feed their chicks. As such, you can expect increased activity and many more opportunities for photography if you are in the vicinity of a bird’s nest.
When waiting for the bird to arrive at its nest, it’s useful to observe the bird from a distance and over the course of a few days to understand its daily rhythm and schedule. Are there still eggs in the nest, or are the parents already reading their nestlings? What time of day, and for how long, do the parents tend to leave the nest in search of food? This period of observation is crucial, and it also lets you be a better judge of how to approach the nest to a photographable distance without disturbing its inhabitants, and how long of a lens you may need.
For cavity nesters – woodpeckers, toucans, bee-eaters, parrots and many owl species, for example – we can often predict from the position of the entrance hole where the parent will be coming from. But with birds that build their own nests on top of trees or something similar, it can be harder to predict what direction they’ll fly from. Thus finding the right angle for a photo can depend somewhat on trial and error.
