No doubt about it, you have to have a sense of humour to attempt to photograph birds.
We’ve been working with this pair now for about three weeks. The male has become particularly confident around me.
Today, he dropped by for a quick once over, and then went back to his feeding duties.
He dropped onto a tree quite close, in fact closer then the lens can focus. Normally the technique is to move the camera-tripod-photographer back a bit, but the scrub prevented that happening. But give the camera credit, if found something to focus on. His Tail!
Thought I’d share it, as it amuses me no end. Enjoy.
She on the other hand is quite happily setting on her brood. She has about another 8 days to go before hatching, and I think this is her third attempt. Hope she’s successful this time.
We don’t go near the nest, or try to take great close ups of her at work, the bird photo police will come round and revoke our license or the ground will open up, I’m not sure which.
We do recognise the Bird Photographers Code of Ethics and Best Practice and leave nesting sites alone.
However there is much to be said for a shot of him feeding her, on the nest, and they are both confident around us. Only thing is of course the consequence of predators following our scent.
I think the code of ethics thing is great. I used to judge national and international photo competitions in the 1970/80s, the number of bird on nest photos was obscene. What was even more pornographic was the damage that was done removing boughs, twigs, digging into nests, and other damage. The worst one was a shot of a nesting Scarlet Robin, and the main protective branch showed hatchet marks where the outer cover had been removed.
In those days, the ‘nature’ photographer, would set up and then go to a motel and let the motion detector take the pics.
No wonder we have a code of ethics.
Via Flickr:
Focus
Focus Focus. This bird is so close that the lens coulnd’t get focus, but did manage to get the tail sharp. Less than 4.5 metres. He has become confident with me.
Birds as Poetry —— Just because I WANDER - --doesn't mean I'm LOST 