Garden Birds

Encouraged by my ‘Big Garden Birdwatch’ results, I decided to have a go at photographing the garden birds today. I wasn’t sure how they’d react, as I haven’t worked with them since last Summer. However, within minutes of setting up, the Blue and Great tits came down and happily used the perch straight away. The only problem was, I wasn’t quite ready!

After the initial burst of activity things quietened down, leaving me to sit in the cold watching the Starlings. They are amusing birds to watch, constantly squabbling and hanging upside down off the feeder. Note to self: set up Starling feeder slightly further away so I can actually fit a whole  Starling in the frame….

The Sparrows, which were my intended target, neatly avoided the perch, so I think I’m going to have to make a few changes to the set up.

Later on, the light was lovely and the Long-tailed tits dropped in for a visit. The pair now seems to have joined up with another pair, and one hopped briefly onto the perch just before the light faded. I really like this image, but have had to crop it unfortunately, as otherwise I would have got the feeder and feeder pole in the shot. I could probably do little work on it in Photoshop – extending the canvas to the left and filling in the background with content aware, but for now I’ve cropped it.

Quite pleased with these shots, not too bad from the first session! A few lessons learned, and I’ve a few ideas for alterations, so really looking forward to the next session.

(Click images for larger version)

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