Birds and me. We watch each other. Some don’t seem to care how close I get if I’m not looking at them. Yet, when I point the telephoto lens they often fly. The filter probably looks like a big eye.
The smaller, faster birds tolerate me moving around quite close. The larger birds seem to need more space.
I sometimes photograph through a window if the large shy birds are close to my house. Going out after they’ve arrived just stresses them and makes them fly away. I don’t want to stress the birds.
Outdoors, I move slowly, just a big mammal sitting or walking slowly about showing little interest in them. I wait for a good image moment and nonchalantly do the capture trying to keep them from feeling stressed by my attention.
I sometimes use a blind outdoors. Still, they often see me go into it or spy me through the lens hole and fly.
My blind is a camouflage pop-up hunting blind. I tie it to the deck rails or stake it to the ground near a tree where birds perch and feed. I can set up a tripod in the blind and choose a couple of natural looking perches, hovering spots near feeders and flowers for hummingbirds, or ground feeding areas with nice backgrounds that are easily captured through the lens openings in the blind.Then I wait, playing with settings and doing some test captures of my chosen locations. When the birds come, I’m ready photograph.
The birds always seem to know when I’m in the blind. Some of the friendlier ones have even flown right up to the lens opening to look in at me. But, it’s nice on cold, windy mornings and keeps the sun off my easily sunburned skin. Out of the blind, I often capture handheld leaving the tripod behind so that I can roam from place to place to capture birds who are watching me to make sure I don’t get to close. My 100 – 400 mm telephoto lens with image stabilization works well handheld at the fast shutter speeds I use for photographing birds.
I try to ID the birds I photograph for titling the prints or posts on my blog. But, I make ID mistakes. Fortunately, I receive help from an 11 year old birder who has been meeting me to talk birds at an autumn show I’ve done the past 2 years. She checks all my titles and gives me tips on being a birder. I give her tips on photographing them. It’s a good trade; I’d like to talk with her more often.
I hate to bore my avid birder friends, but it doesn’t matter to me that it’s the same species I’ve photographed so many times before.
Do I get bored with the 700th stellers jay? Yes, of course, but if I think the light and background will all come together to make a good photograph, I capture the image anyway.
I think of myself as a nature photo-journalist, photographing the daily nature happenings in Consworld. So, even if it’s just another chickadee, it’s today’s news, and I try to get the best image yet, like mountain chickadee #492 keeping an eye on me as I photograph.
I was really laughing at the idea of the birds flying right up to your telephoto lens and looking down it while you are in the blind! I could just imagine the frustration at wanting to fill the frame but the birds just being too close while you are in the blind.
Yes, Howard, it is frustrating when the birds come closer than my minimum focusing distance, but also fun to know they want to interact with me.
I’m with you on photographing the same birds time and time again. No matter how many times I’ve taken a picture of a chickadee, for example, they still delight me. If the joy goes away, I’ll stop. But it hasn’t gone away and I don’t think its even close to going away. Keep on photographing all the birds!
Thanks for the encouraging words, Zen. I’m with you, when it no longer makes me happy, I’ll stop, but for now, I find great happiness in photographing the birds.