Photographing birds in your back garden

There is no better way to start taking photographs of birds than by practising on the ones closest to you in your back garden or some other neighbourhood locality. Tempt the birds to spend regular time in your garden, and you’ll get great photo opportunities.

Thrushes seem to love apples!
500mm lens | ISO 100 | 1/250 sec at ƒ/11

Blinds and concealment

If you want to be able to conceal yourself in your garden without having to buy a blind, perhaps the easiest solution is to use your garden shed. A shed that’s in a reasonable position for the light needs only for you to open the window and place some camouflage netting across it and you have a ready-made blind.
You might be able to shoot from your kitchen window; if your regular garden birds are used to people in the house, you might not even need to be concealed. If you install a feeding station in your garden, you might find that some birds become so tame that you can be filling up the feeders and they will be perched mere inches away, waiting for their food. If your garden birds are tame, this is a big bonus when it comes to photography. But remember if you are not concealed, the shier species will stay away.

Attracting birds to your garden

When setting up a feeding station in your garden, go for a position where the sun will be behind you during the part of the day you intend to be photographing and match this with a good, clean background. If good backgrounds are hard to come by, you can
easily manipulate this by placing a subtly coloured cloth or board to act as an out-of-focus backdrop. The great thing about backyard photography as opposed to stalking birds in the wild, is that you can control the background lighting and available perches.
This beautiful snowy-bellied hummingbird was photographed in the gardens of a lodge in Panama, South America. Because it came back to rest on the same perch after each feeding foray, it was possible to tidy up the background, eliminating a cluster of tiny branches that would have distracted from the beauty of the bird.
500mm lens | ISO 200 | 1/125 sec at ƒ/5.6

Food choices

The key to attracting lots of birds is to put out as much food as you can afford and to provide as big a variety of food as possible. While it might seem excessive to have up to ten feeders, a bird table, and food sprinkled on the ground when not taking pictures, it will help to attract a variety of birds into your garden. The advantage of attracting big numbers is that when you come to photograph you can remove nearly all your feeders: this creates a queuing system, meaning birds have to perch around the feeders before there is space to jump on.
A white- crowned sparrow was lured into view by placing mixed seed below the bush.
500mm lens | ISO 100 | 1/640 sec at ƒ/5.6
A variety of foods is key to attracting a good variety of species. In the United States, foods can range from sugar solutions for hummingbirds, fruit for tanagers and orioles (the latter like oranges sliced in two), mealworms for various species including bluebirds, and peanut butter smeared on logs and tree trunks for woodpeckers. Various seed mixes can be bought to attract specific species. Put niger seed out, and you are soon likely to have a regular flock of goldfinches; peanuts are excellent for tits and that common garden visitor, the great spotted woodpecker, while apples and pears are a big hit with thrushes.
Don’t automatically ignore images of birds on feeders. Although luring a bird onto a decent-looking perch makes for an attractive photograph, some dynamic images can be taken of action on and around the food source, such as this image of a great spotted woodpecker.
300mm lens | ISO 100 | 1/500 sec at ƒ/5.6

Constructing perches

The chances are that you will not want your pictures to feature the garden feeder that the birds are visiting, so the trick here is to place a decent-looking perch close to the feeder but not too close so that it appears in the picture. The birds will then use the perch before jumping onto the feeder or bird table to feed. Perches can really enhance the picture, so do spend a little time looking for suitable twigs, branches, logs, and sometimes rocks to use. If you snap a twig, make sure the break does not show, or if unavoidable, smear some mud over the break to disguise it.
There are all sorts of tricks you can use to get birds to use perches: for example, robins can easily be tempted onto all sorts of garden implements, luring them onto fork handles, flowerpots, and even a garden gnome! All you need to do is place some mealworms in an old film canister and tape it to the perch just out of shot.
500mm lens | ISO 100; | 1/500 sec at ƒ/8
Food is not the only way of attracting birds—they need water too, and a small pond or simply a receptacle with a drip will work. A perch can be placed out of sight of your receptacle, or if birds are coming to a small pond, you can line the banks with moss or other attractive natural features to hide any signs of the pond being man-made.

Plants for bird photography

If you have a good-sized backyard, it is worth planting shrubs that produce berries and other plants attractive to birds. A well-placed tree or shrub that bears berries or fruit will provide great photo opportunities for a variety of species of bird. If you plant native shrubs or trees, your pictures will look all the more authentic.

The Bird Photography Field Guide is David Tipling’s expert reference to teach you everything you need to know about capturing birds in all their beauty. With useful advice on the essential equipment and photographic techniques, as well tips on composition to get you thinking more creatively, you’ll be taking superb photos that show off your subject in the best possible way.

The Bird Photography Field Guide
David Tipling
 
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RRP for print edition: £8.99