A Beginner's Guide to Photographing Garden Birds

Author: Emma Brown

Photographer Emma Brown shares her experiences in attracting birds to her garden and photographing them using methods that don’t disturb the birds.

Use the longest lens you have so you can keep your distance and avoid disturbing the birds.

Attracting garden birds

Where will they settle?

If you don’t already have birds visiting your garden, you’ll need to start feeding them. Decide which part of the garden you’d like to attract them to before you start putting out food.

which areas get the most light?
how close to the house the birds need to be?

How close do you think the birds are likely to come and how far away can they be before they start to get lost in the frame? Get your camera out, extend the lens to its maximum and look through the viewfinder to give you an idea.

What to feed them?

The most important thing is to do no harm. Be aware that there are some things you shouldn’t be feed birds, such as cooking fat, milk and salty food. This excellent resource from the RSPB will tell you what to feed, how to do it and which birds different foods will attract: Feeding Birds

Use whatever type of feeder suits your outdoor space – a bowl set on the ground will do if you don’t have anything else to hand. I find that plastic milk bottle tops, secured to branches with garden wire, are excellent for attracting birds to particular spots. (Perforate the bottom so that the food doesn’t become waterlogged when it rains.) If you have a hanging feeder, place it somewhere you’ll get a clear shot. Stray branches can obscure the bird and cause focussing problems.

Put out water too. Birds need it to drink and bathe, especially in winter. I have a blackbird that loves to splash about in a cereal bowl full of water. It’s fun to watch and even more fun to try and photograph.

Don’t lose heart if you don’t get any visitors straight away: it takes them a little time to realise you’ve left any treats out for them.

Great tit: Sony a6000, 210 mm, Aperture Priority, f6.3, 1/400 sec, ISO 1600

Method 1: Photographing through a window

This method is the easiest and requires the least equipment. The downside is that it doesn’t always result in the best-quality image because you’re likely to be shooting through glass.

Technique

Unless you have a very long telephoto lens (eg. 600mm), you’re most likely to be shooting through a closed window, otherwise you’ll scare the birds away. Reflections in the glass can be a problem, especially with double glazing, but you can minimise them by ensuring that you have no bright light sources behind you and by putting the end of the lens right up against the glass, or as close as you can manage. You can buy special rubber lens hoods that cut down on reflections but I just reverse my existing lens hood, which allows me to get close to the glass but protects the lens from bumping against it. You also don’t want to be shooting through a dirty window, so make sure it’s clean.

Focus and settings

Birds move very fast, especially their heads: they’re constantly on the lookout for predators, or picking at food or something on the ground. This means that you don’t have much time to fiddle with settings or find the focus. In a way, this is good news if you’re not very confident with either of these elements. Set your camera up beforehand and then just concentrate on getting the shot.

Focus

Your camera should have a continuous autofocus setting (AF-C), and this is the one you’ll need. This means that the camera will be looking for things that are moving in the frame and should automatically lock the focus on the bird. If you’re having trouble with this, especially if you have a mirrorless camera, try single-shot autofocus instead (AF-S).

Whichever mode you’re using, it helps to tell the camera which part of the frame to focus on. I would recommend setting the focus to the centre. That way, if you always place the bird in the centre of the frame, you should get the focus right. You can crop the image later to get the composition you like.

Using centre focus also means that you can use centre-weighted metering, to ensure the bird is properly exposed. This is especially useful if it has chosen a shady spot to settle and the ambient light is quite bright.

You can maximise your hit rate if you use continuous shooting mode, which continues to take pictures for as long as you depress the shutter button.

Exposure settings

use a fast shutter speed to avoid motion blur and camera shake (start with about 1/500th)
start with an aperture of f5.6 or f8 and reduce it (to f4 or f2.8) as your focussing skills improve
let the ISO creep up as high as it needs to; you can leave it on auto and let the camera decide

In manual mode, take a few pictures, look over them and adjust your settings accordingly. Is the bird blurry? If so, try a faster shutter speed. Is enough of the bird in focus? If it is, great: stick with your selected aperture or try a larger one if you want to throw the background more out of focus. If it isn’t, make the aperture smaller. The ISO should adjust automatically to compensate for your changes, unless you don’t have enough light and you’ve reached the limits of your camera – in which case you will need to compromise.

Robin: Sony a6000, 210 mm, Manual, f6.3, 1/800 sec, ISO 3200

Method 2: Using a tripod (or tripod substitute) and remote shutter release

This method is a little more involved because it requires some planning. You’ll set the camera up in the garden and control it from inside. This means that you can’t just pick up your camera when you see a bird swoop down; you need to anticipate precisely where it will land and trigger the shutter from a distance. It’s difficult to get a good shot but when you do, you’ll probably be happier with it than your through-the-window shots. There are a few things you can do to make it easier to predict where (and when) birds will land:

Just observe them for a little while: you’ll notice that they’re creatures of habit and often take the same route to the feeder; they’ll come to feed at similar times of day, too. There will often be flurries of activity at these times and then nothing for a while.

Encourage them: they like something to land on before they approach the feeder, so if you use a ground feeder (or just a bowl placed on the ground), set up a “perch”. This could be a fallen branch or, if you’re feeling more creative, something like an upturned flowerpot – this will look great in the picture too.

Robin: Sony a6000, 177 mm, Aperture Priority, f6.3, 1/80 sec, ISO 3200

Equipment

You’ll need a tripod to keep the camera steady, or somewhere flat and secure to rest it if you don’t have a tripod. You can buy wireless remote shutter releases but you may well find you don’t need to: some camera manufacturers have free apps that you can download to your smartphone and allow you to control your camera via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. You can see the live-view image on your phone’s screen, and this is a big advantage. You probably won’t be able to change much in the way of camera settings from your phone, but you will at least be able to trigger the shutter.

It’s also a significant advantage if you have a silent shutter mode on your camera, otherwise you’ll just startle the birds and will find it difficult to get a decent shot.

Blue tit: Sony a6000, 210 mm, Aperture Priority, f6.3, 1/400 sec, ISO 2000

Technique

Set the camera and tripod up a little distance from the feeder. How far depends on the length of your lens and whether you have silent shutter mode or not. There’s no need to disguise the camera – in my experience, the birds will quickly get used to it and will go about their feeding unperturbed. If you want to protect your camera, you can fashion a makeshift cover (I use a modified cardboard box). (Don’t forget to turn off image stabilisation when using a tripod, whether it’s in your lens or the body of the camera, and turn it back on again when you’ve finished.)

You’ll need to use manual focus, otherwise the camera will probably focus on anything but the bird when left to its own devices. Focus on your perch, a favourite branch if the feeder is hanging in a tree, or the feeder itself if you don’t mind getting it in the shot. I prefer not to focus on the feeder because I’d rather have a more natural-looking shot and the bird won’t have its head down feeding (it’ll be moving too fast or be obscured).

If you can, focus slightly in front of where you think the bird will land, otherwise you might end up with beautifully sharp feet but a slightly out-of-focus head. The eyes are the critical part of the bird and must be in focus.

Blackbird: Sony a6000, 125 mm, Manual, f8, 1/800 sec, ISO 3200

Take a test shot and zoom in to 100% to check that you have focussed properly. Just imagine how upset you’d be if you’d waited ages, got just the shot you wanted and then discovered that it was out of focus when you retrieved your camera.

Now pair your camera with the remote app on your phone, or set up the wireless remote, and take another test shot to make sure it’s working properly. Retreat inside and wait for the birds to land on your perch. You’ll probably be waiting some time, so it helps to have something to alleviate the boredom that also allows you to concentrate on what’s going on outside. (I listen to the radio quietly.)

Be patient, be persistent and keep trying. There will be a lot of frustration along the way, but moments of success too. And once you’ve cracked it, you’ll be ready to take on the challenge of capturing birds in flight.