USABirdSupply.com Wild Bird Supplies

People love wild birds.  For starters we watch them, feed them, rescue them when injured, sculpt them, pen beautiful stories and poems about them, and photograph them.

There is something both reverential and fantastical about these feathered jewels, whether the diminutive bee hummingbird or that great flightless, curious behemoth – the ostrich.

With respect to taking their pictures, birds naturally lend themselves to that photographic moment.  Some species like American robins, blue jays and crows are common and regularly seen in the neighborhood while other birds like mallard ducks and Canada geese (when living in suburban settings) can sometimes be closely approached camera in hand…

In the “old days” (just ten years ago!) capturing a technically perfect bird image on film was an ordeal that required an expensive telephoto lens, tripod and endless patience while the exposures were sent out for developing.  In some cases, the “turn around” could be a week or more.

However, as seasoned pros and advanced amateur can attest, today’s digital cameras, lenses and home printers are unquestionably as good or often better than their “old school” predecessors from the 1980’s and  1990’s.

Today, digital images of birds are previewed on the camera’s viewing screen.  Fuzzy, underexposed or poorly composed images are instantly erased by hitting the camera’s delete button: imagine how much wasted film, chemicals and photo paper this eliminates each year!

Why photograph birds at all?  Here are a few ideas to consider:  how about creating an avian scrapbook of all the species you encounter at your backyard feeder or on vacation?  Some creative folks even self-publish coffee table books on a favorite subject: a wedding, a young person’s hobby, dogs, a vintage car, flower gardens, any topic can become a book.

Digital images make memorable gifts such as postcards, page markers, framed prints or computer screen savers.

Become a two-season hunter.  In the off season, waterfowlers and other bird hunters can try their skill at panning and capturing birds in flight.  A sharp, full-frame flying bird in the viewfinder generally takes considerable skill and patience – and a little luck – to achieve.  Try it sometime…

Most of all, photographing these highly evolved, winged dinosaurs is just plain and challenging fun!

Late April and early May is a good time to photograph Canada geese in New York.  These large, ubiquitous waterfowl have come to inhabit suburban and industrial park settings and are quite approachable, but please always treat these fascinating birds and all wildlife with unconditional respect.  In addition to doing the right thing, it’s the law!

In the nesting season, Canadas are sometimes known to occasionally charge people and pets that approach too closely.  Actually, keeping a safe distance between any bird or mammal, or their nest or den site is wise for several reasons.

We always want to avoid frightening any animal into abandoning its eggs or young.  Approaching a nest or den may leave a smelly trail of human scent that attracts hungry foxes, coyotes, feral cats or other predators.

It is a commonly held fallacy that birds can smell human odors, thereby leading to nest desertion.  In reality, adult birds constantly survey their nests from a safe distance, and may leave when a person gets too close.  But why?

Due in large measure to persecution by humans over hundreds of years, birds have come to view us as a very large threat to their survival. In many cases it is easier for a bird to abandon its nest and start over in a safer place if the upset has occurred early enough in the narrow time range of a species nesting cycle.

With a few preliminary points behind us let’s get outdoors with our cameras in pursuit of birds.

Wildlife photographers seek to create a safe working distance between their feathered or furred subjects by selecting the right telephoto lens for the job.  Usually bigger is better, but more expensive also.

Although cost is a factor in selecting a long lens, experiment with the equipment that you already own.

As a rule of thumb, tele lenses in the 200 – 400 mm. focal range leave a 15’ – 30’ distance between the subject (bird) and photographer.  Further, digital cameras provide a 1.5x magnification over lenses once used with conventional film cameras.

For example, a 200 mm. lens used on a film camera is equal to a 300 mm. lens on a digital camera body.  Even those nifty, wafer thin point and shoots with built in tele lenses in the 3 – 5 megapixel range can adequately capture birdlife.

The accompanying images of Canada geese show a goose and gander at the nest built between a small pond and an industrial haul road used by 40 ton articulating dump trucks rumbling past 140 times each day.  Talk about animal adaptation!

The usual assortment of natural predators and scavengers were sharing this area: fox, coyote, raccoon, opossum, skunk, crow and gull.

By Paul Schnell
http://www.ielraptors.org/

So you have finally decided you want to feed birds.

Great idea. Tens of thousands around the world gain great personal satisfaction from this activity. And chances are that you will as well.

But now you have to decide how to get started. And even before you start, you need to understand that there is one serious responsibility you take on as a bird feeder.

I don’t mean that once you start you are committed to keep your feeders full. You should understand that if birds come to your feeders, it is because it is convenient for them. If you stop feeding your visitors, they will return to other resources, which may be insects overwintering in one of their hibernation-like diapausal states, as eggs or in pupal cases. Or it may be fruit still remaining from last summer’s crop. Or it may even be your neighbor’s feeder.

Instead, you should understand your responsibility to keep your feeders clean. This is a serious matter as birds do foul feeders with their feces and unclean feeders can spread diseases like the conjunctivitis that in recent years caused blindness among house finches and even a few goldfinches and pine siskins. Weekly cleaning of feeders and birdbaths is a necessary part of your role. I will have more to say about this in a later column.

Okay, you’re up to that. So let’s shop with your birding catalog or at the local birding store. And here is where culture shock sets in. The array of feeders is mind-bending. There are all kinds of tubes and all kinds of globes and all kinds of platforms and all kinds of suet cages. There are feeders for different bird species: hummingbirds, orioles, woodpeckers, finches, doves. There are squirrel-proof feeders. (With deer and bears raiding feeders in some areas, we may soon see feeders that somehow protect against them as well.)

You will probably find yourself overwhelmed and, unless you have a helpful store employee to assist you, you might even give up the whole idea.

Don’t do that. Instead, simply start small and build on any success you have. If I were beginning again, I would begin with two things: a suet or cake feeder and a pan for water.

A suet feeder is a cage that holds a block of prepared suet or even suet you can purchase from a butcher and modify yourself. There are all kinds of suet feeders and they are quite inexpensive. Base your decision which one to buy on whether you plan to hang it with a string or attach it to a tree or wall.

Suet feeders attract all kinds of woodpeckers as well as chickadees and nuthatches. (Unfortunately, they attract starlings as well. Starlings may well be your first visitors, but don’t be too put off: they will call the attention of other species to your feeder.)

Cake feeders are more expensive but they attract more kinds of birds as well, because they have seeds embedded in a suet base. In northern states they might draw in goldfinches, siskins, redpolls as well as the rarer pine and evening grosbeaks.

Water is welcome all year long, and a pan of water is attractive to all kinds of birds. The snow may be two feet deep but birds will be delighted to drink and splash around in a birdbath. Some people simply put out a pan of warm water every morning, with the water only an inch or so deep.

One problem is that really cold weather will freeze that water rapidly. Today, many birders either buy heated bird baths or add a heater to their water pan to really spoil the birds, who can then luxuriate in a warm bath off and on all day. In this case I urge you to buy a heating element designed for this purpose as you’ll want an insulated heater.

Once you have your feeding area set up, be prepared to wait. And wait. And often wait some more. Birds are creatures of habit and, although you will have provided a nice feeding and bathing area for them, it will take time for them to accommodate to your offerings. This delay I consider the most annoying aspect of bird feeding.

When they do begin to visit, you can start thinking about expanding your operation to include seed trays and tubes. I’ll talk about them in another column.

- By Gerry Rising