Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Bird photography, putting in backyard practice.

Any regular reader must know by now that I'm trying to improve my nature photography and that I am putting in a lot of practice to get better at bird shooting. The reason for that is simple, there's a lot more birds, both in species and numbers, to shoot here than mammals or other big animals.

Last night after dinner I noticed that the house sparrows had managed to empty the feeder in 24 hours. Since I am low on seed for the feeder I decided to get some stale bread, cut it really fine and treat the birds to that. Soon after I noticed that this totally changed their flight patterns, from their usual hops to and from the feeder they now went on different routes. Why not put in a bit of practice? There wasn't much light left but I could still practice framing and focussing.

I was right, this is good practice and it's fun too!

I especially like these three showing typical house sparrow behaviour. After the young have left the nest you can still see them begging for food from their parents. Af first they will always give in to the begging but after some days they are left to fend for themselves. I think there's a bit of a teaching aspect as well, the chicks watch from a safe place and see their parents swoop down and pick up food.

Pics clickable for bigger version. Everything Nikon D300 + 70-300 VR


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