Back Yard Blind

[finnbay]

Okay, here goes. After having spent an afternoon with Steve and his back yard set up for shooting songbirds, I set up a blind in my back yard. As you can see by the photos, I have a ground blind set off to the side of my yard with a flat feeder in front of it. I usually shoot with a 300 2.8 which has just over an 8 ft minimum focusing distance, so the blind is an appropriate distance from that. Initially I had an antlered deer skull sitting as a perch on the feeder (which brought no end of snickers from my wife) and now have a red maple twig and balsam top. The background across the yard is about 75 feet away and is primarily balsam boughs. Three questions I have:

1. What other items do you find make good perches for a natural setting?

2. Balsam boughs make a great background, but tend to be pretty dark. Any ideas on how to lighten that?

3. Would like to get some downies to the feeder. How would you get some suet in a natural manner on the feeder to attract woodpeckers/nuthatches?

Thanks!

[MN Shutterbug]

Nice looking setup. For suet, why not just take some peanut butter and mix some seeds or oat meal in with it and then smear it on a branch or something? I make my own suet with peanut butter, shortening, oatmeal, flour and sugar. The peckers love it.

[Steve Foss]

Ken, here are some tips based on your questions and on the setup I see.

1. Give the birds a SINGLE perch option. By offering them multiple balsam branch and dogwood perches, you're making it impossible to keep your lens on a small enough area to capture the faster-moving species. Sometimes a bird will stay on a perch long enough for you to shift your lens around AND not mind seeing that lens move from 8 feet away, but much of the time moving the lens from that distance (and your hands and face potentially moving and being seen through the blind opening) will flush a bird. When I offer a twig/branch as a perch, it is a single shaft, so the most I have to do is move my lens incrementally to reposition if a bird is on a different part of the shaft than where my lens was set. Small movements save the day when wary and quick birds land. And while some birds may land on the perch to survey the feeder before hopping down, I get the most action on the perch when the feeder is very busy and birds have to wait their turn. When that happens, some will wait their turn on the perch and, ShaZAM!

2. A dark balsam background is great. What you're most concerned about is the proper exposure on the bird, and it's far easier to compose an attractive bird image when the background is dark rather than light. In consistent light, getting things right will most often involve changing over to manual exposure settings, with a few test shots and review of the histogram to make sure you're exposed as far to the right (highlights) as possible without blowing out any whites. If the light is inconsistent (parly cloudy), use exposure compensation and evaluate as things change. These settings also will change depending on what type of bird you're photographing. In the same light, for example, you'll need to do things differently with manual settings to get the whites of a high-contrast chickadee exposed properly than you would the mid tones of a monochromatic pine siskin. The only birds that will come to your feeder and are going to be darker than a dark green balsam background are black birds, and the only winter black birds up here are ravens, which won't come in to your setup. So dial in the proper exposure for the bird itself and the darker background will take care of itself.

3. While I offer a variety of feeders at my backyard station, when shooting I take down and put in the garage all but the tray feeder the perch is attached to. That makes it much more likely my subjects will put themselves where I want them.

4. You can render suet on your own by heating meat fat (beef, chicken, pork and venison all are fine), and pouring it over a perch before it hardens. Chickadees, nuthatches and woodpeckers all will come in to that. You can also use as a perch a small log/branch that has coarse bark and put dabs of the suet in the bark cavities so they are less visible in the image (or require less work to clone out in pp). A few sunflower seeds strategically placed in bark fissures also work nicely.

Well, that's a start.

[Jim Almquist]

Thank for the great ideas Steve and Ken. I now have the blind but need to find some time to get it all set up. We have a pair of Cardinals and Pine Grosbeaks that come to the feeders so I will have to adjust there eating habits so I can get a little better shot.

[finnbay]

Thanks, Steve! Helpful as always!