Photographing Birds
Locally
by
Dick Budnik
Just mention birds and many of us dream of photographing
herons and egrets in the Everglades, flamingos on a
brackish lake in Kenya, puffin and penguin colonies in
colder climates, and macaws in a Central American tropical
forest. Traveling to photograph birds has serious
drawbacks. Try checking eighty pounds of photo gear as
carry-on baggage at your local airport and don't even think
of clearing customs in Nairobi on your own. Organized
photo tours are costly, over too quickly, and far too
dependent on weather and the experience of your guides.
You also have too little control over how, where and when
you will shoot. Worst yet, it's a long wait to your next photo
trip. What's an avid bird photographer to do in the
meantime?
Consider photographing birds in your backyard or at least in your neighborhood. Birds are attracted to a reliable food source near good cover. Birds are like bad relatives, if you feed them, they will come and they will stay. To attract birds just set up a feeding station in your backyard. Pick a location with a non-distracting background. Ideally, you'll want the birds to be lite with frontal lighting as they perch around the feeder. You can shoot through an open window with long telephoto lenses or using medium telephotos from a blind nearer the feeders. In either case, be sure to provide a brush pile or some tall bushes nearby to allow the birds to escape from hawks and falcons. Please, keep your cats indoors. Remember, the objective here is to feed the birds not your cats. A heated bird bath is also a great attraction for birds in cold climates.
I live in an apartment and don't actually
have a backyard. Over the years, I've hung
feeders on my windows using suction cups only
to have my downstairs neighbor complain when
the seed and occasionally the feeder fell to her
patio. I tried several different arrangements to
prevent seed spillage. I even went to the extent
of placing an open-front plexiglass box inside my
window to invite the birds to feed inside my
apartment. While my cats found my window box
an endless source of amusement and frustration,
my neighbor still complained about the bird
droppings. The feeders at tree limb level attract
a large number of finches, doves, titmice,
chickadees, nuthatches, woodpeckers, juncos
and jays. My feeders were gray squirrel-proof
though I had a flying squirrel visiting every night.
I generally try to photography birds in trees near
the feeder. I use a Bogan Pistol Grip ball head
mounted on a board clamped to the window sill. I
shoot through a slit cut in a drape. Lens focal
lengths from 350mm to 1000mm are most useful
for small birds 20 to 100 ft away. Shooting wide
open with my Olympus f2.8 / 350mm lens, with
1.4x and 2x teleconverters, requires long shutter speeds in the 1/30 to ½ second range. I love the soft out-of-focus backgrounds I get shooting wide open. Stopping motion at these shutter speeds is also a real challenge.
Even when the bird don't move, the branches often sway in the breeze. A major limitation of my window setup is
the lack of control over the lighting. My view faces east so if I shoot at sunrise my birds are strongly back lite. By
noon, the birds are in full shadow as the sunlight is blocked by my apartment building. Worse yet my
backgrounds receive full sunlight and are several f stops brighter than the birds. Between sunrise and noon, the
birds are back or side lighted. However, sunlight bouncing off the side of my building acts a giant reflector card
to provide frontal fill lighting on the birds.
Fortunately for photographers bird activity picks up in the late afternoon. To take advantage of wonderful golden late afternoon light from the southwest. I established a feeding site in a nearby hillside meadow where I had often photographed nesting bluebirds and deer.
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The meadow abuts a swamp and is surrounded by second growth woodlands. One edge of the meadow transitions from swampland to a brush lot to a conifer stand to a hardwood forest.Life is most abundant and most active in transition zones. I have often set up in the woods along the edge of this meadow to photography deer entering the meadow at dusk and exiting at dawn. With permission from the land owner, I built a permanent blind in the middle of the meadow and hung seed and suet feeders from a single tree uphill and east of the blind. This setup yields frontal lighting on the birds in the late afternoon. The steep slope of the hillside frames the top of the meadow and treeline as a distant soft out-of-focus background even when the birds are 10-20 feet above me in the branches. I have piled fallen limbs and dead brush around the blind to provide additional security cover for the birds.
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The blind serves as my base of operation for
much of my local photography as well as a
convenient temporary sanctuary from bad
weather. In the winter I photograph birds at
the feeders and deer browsing in the
meadow. In the spring bluebirds, tree
swallows and wrens nest in boxes in the
meadow. In summer the meadow is full of wild
flowers, insects, butterflies, butterfly moths
and dragonflies. Fall brings the turning of the
leaves and fully antlered bucks chasing their
does. Timing is everything in nature
photography. I've walked through this
meadow a hundred times and seen nothing.
But when I slow down and spend some time
in the meadow I always find something to
photograph.
Over the years in this meadow I have photographed deer, racoons, porcupines, rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, woodchucks, snakes, mice, toads, spiders, webs, bats, turtles, salamanders, newts, red fox, coyotes and even the tracks of a cougar. The birds I've seen in this meadow include robins, cardinals, blue jays, sparrows, titmice, red-breasted and white-breasted nuthatches, house and Carolina wrens, mourning doves, blackbirds, crows, indigo buntings, wild turkeys, starlings, cedar and bohemian waxwings, bluebirds, catbirds, bronze cowbirds, chickadees, wood ducks, kestrels, finches, flickers, geese, grackles, woodcocks, downy,hairy,red-belied and pileated woodpeckers, sapsuckers, tanagers, broad-winged, Cooper's, red-tailed and sharp-shinned hawks, juncos, mockingbirds, an ovenbird, a barred owl, a great horned owl, pewees, phoebes, vultures and six species of warblers. Don't overlook the endless photographic opportunities in your own backyard or in a nearby meadow.
A nature photographer by avocation, trained as a research
scientist, Dick operates Dick Budnik Photography in Mt. Kisco, NY
where he offers a range of custom photographic, digital imaging and
consulting services. He offers fine art prints, custom digital printing,
computer imaging and retouching services, commercial and
industrial photography and computer consulting. His photographic
services and stock photos have been utilized by a variety of clients
from major corporations to small businesses, nature publications,
nature centers and individual artists. His photographs have
appeared in nature publications, calendars, text books, posters,
newsletters and numerous web sites. Dick has exhibited in group
and individual shows in the greater New York area. He is a frequent
camera club judge and lecturer at schools, libraries, clubs, nature
centers and state parks in the area. Dick has taught Wildlife
Photography at the Westchester Art Workshop. He privately tutors
in PhotoShop, web page design, and computer basics. He has been
very active in the Westchester Photographic Society as a Salon
competitor, a Board Director, Corporate Secretary, Executive VP and
its current Webmaster. He is also the Webmaster for the Central
Westchester Audubon Society.
Dedicated to the observation of wildlife in its natural environment, Dick is usually found in his element stalking the swamps, meadows and forests of wild Westchester.
email: DickBudnikPhotography@att.net
website: http://Dick-Budnik.home.att.net