Shooting Blind is for the Birds

The soft glow of the morning sky hinted at the coming sunrise. My breath flowed visibly out on the cold frosty air like steam billowing from a thermal vent. I loaded up the Mini-van with camera gear, thankful and willing to pay homage to the deity of long underwear, my body at least was kept warm. My focus this month was on small bird photography; I had several locations in mind. This particular morning though, I would be heading out on private land to photograph from a blind with my good friend Don. Something Don and myself had been planning for quite some time.

We arrived with good time and waited quietly for the show to begin. Now, I would like to say that we sat in the blind and waited patiently for whatever bird just happened to come our way but it isn’t to be so. This particular blind was well equipped with feeders, piles of branches for the birds to hide in and bird seed, plenty of it. Some might call this cheating but I think of it as a necessary evil to photograph birds that are accustomed to people. No birds were harmed, distracted from feeding or fed chocolate or any other harmful substances. These birds had been coming to these feeders for generations before I even took up photography.

As if the rising sun were their cue, the birds began to arrived. The first ones out were the sparrows, Song Sparrows (Melospiza melodia), and White-crowned Sparrows (Zonotrichia leucophrys) then the Towhees, California Towhee (Piplio crisalis) and the Spotted Towhee (Piplio maculates) one of my favorites! Following in suit, were the Western Scrub Jay (Aphelocma californica), the Red-winged Black Bird (Agelaius phoeniceus), Oak Titmouse (Baeolophus inornatus), Chestnut-backed Chickadee (Pocile rufescens) and the California Quail (Callipepla californica) just to name a few.

As the morning progressed small Brush Rabbits (Sylvilagus bachmanii) began to appear, hopping about and nibbling on the fresh grass sprouting underneath the Coyote Brush (Baccharis pilularis). Another small mammal, and one that I had not expected to appear, found its way to the feeders. Western Gray Squirrels (Sciurus griseus), three to be exact tipping and tilting the feeders as they bound from ground to platform stuffing their cheeks with seeds and nuts. A rustling to our right from the bushes exposed three Black-tailed Mule Deer (Odocoileus hemionus). One doe and two fawns crept slowly and warily about 30 feet in front of the blind. They could sense us but could not see us and after a short period of time passed they took off up a near by hill spooked by the idea of being watched.

Back to the birds, they would come in waves. For moments of time, there would be hundreds, then at the snap of a twig or the rustle of a leaf they would either fly off in hiding or into the stacks of branches that were strategically placed around the base of the feeders. Slowly they would emerge again and again. One often talks of the quiet solitude of nature, but this nature was a loud feeding frenzy of squawks, calls and chirps. There was plenty to aim a camera at!

But, it isn’t enough to just have hundreds of subjects to photograph. You have to catch them in the right light, on the right perch with a pleasing background. This is where the work is involved. These subjects are constantly on the move. Rather than chase them around, it is best to study a possible perch that is frequently used, pre-focus your camera and wait for a willing subject to strike a pose. Simple is always best. I try to isolate my subject against an uncluttered background that I can throw out of focus and get a good bokeh.

The Sun broke over the tops of the nearby hills flooding the foreground around the base of the feeders with brilliant white light creating difficult contrasts and often times overly back lit subjects. After trying to capture birds with a good rim light around them we felt that perhaps we had already made the best of the morning and it was time to leave things to the birds. As I am beginning to understand, it is proper and almost expected etiquette to get lunch after a good photo shoot and so we headed off to the nearby city of Morro bay for a great lunch and stimulating conversation, Happy with our mornings outing.