Dive!

Before I got into photography, I had the wrong idea about how birds took to flight from branches. When a bird wants to fly from the ground, it spreads it's wings and lifts itself into the air. Not being very observant, I thought the same was true of birds sitting on a tree branch - spread wings; take off. Not. At least, not as often as you might think. 

Watch them sometime. If their destination is below the place where they are currently resting, as often as not, they don't spread their wings. It is more like a dive as in this photo of a Green Heron leaving a branch. They do spread their wings, but it isn't until they have almost reached the spot where they are going to land and it is more to break their descent than anything else.

Bottom line is, if you want to take a picture of a bird spreading it's wings, you will have to take it when they are landing rather than when they are taking off. Otherwise, you end up with odd looking photos like this.