Kent's Viewfinder: Bird Photography Tips

Background

I'm an amateur photographer trying my hand at capturing images of birds. For great bird photos, look up Scott Bourne or Arthur Morris. For a very thorough online book on bird photography, check Majoros' book. For a brief description of what what I've figured out as I try to get better at this hobby, keep reading.

After several years of bird photography, I finally feel as though I have something to say about gear. I started with a crop sensor camera and a cheap zoom lens. My results were usually soft (fuzzy in appearance where I prefer sharp images) and forget it in low light. I upgraded to a 300mm f4 and added a 1.4 teleconverter. For years I got most of my shots at f5.6 and an effective focal length of 630mm. My results were better, but often soft if the light wasn't great. Eventually I upgraded to a full frame DSLR, and that was my kit for a while. I would walk around with the camera slung on a BlackRapid strap, still using the 300mm f4 and teleconverter, shooting at an effective focal length of 420mm. Even with the reduced reach, I was happier with the results. I liked the (relatively) light weight and ease of walking with it. Eventually I upgraded again, this time to a 500mm f4 lens. I knew when I got it that it would be heavy. And it is. I can still walk around with it, but it's too big and heavy for a strap so I have to carry it by the lens foot. Even with gloves on, the cold metal lens foot sucks heat from my hand when I go out in cold weather. I fear if I use a strap that the metal or plastic will eventually wear out and drop my camera and expensive lens. If I expect to sit in one place for a while, I use a carbon fiber tripod and gimbal head.

And finally I'm done with gear acquisition syndrome. This kit does what I want. I'm primarily a wildlife photographer, with a few aircraft and sporting events thrown in. When I go out to a wildlife refuge or Conowingo Dam, this kit is average. I see all of the other serious photographers using the same kind of gear that I have because it's the right combination of focal length, aperture, and sensor for the job.

As for technique...

Patience. Persistence. Birds like to perch in particular trees that they have chosen. They are creatures of habit: Once you find a spot they favor, keep going back. Or stay a while and wait for them to show up. They'll be back.
Make sure the eyes are well-lit and sharp/in focus.

Osprey Peeks at Me

The consequence of this is that shots where the bird is flying away from you are usually useless. Similarly, if the eyes are in shadow, maybe because of a lifted wing or nearby branch, the photo is diminished. Some photographers say, if you've missed the eyes, you've missed the shot. I was at Conowingo Dam one day when an eagle flew over and a photographer near me remarked, as a bird flew away, "I can only take so much eagle ass." We put our cameras down. But sometimes it can still work without the eyes. Here's a shot that I like because of the sunlight on the wings and the spread talons.

Osprey Talons
I think a partially-obstructed view works sometimes. If the eyes are sharp and well lit, the obstructions can give a sense of depth and environment that adds to the story of the photo. In this shot below, I tried to walk around on the path to get the clearest shot I could, and I ended up with this one that shows the bird in its element, in the forest, high in a tree, difficult to see.

Bald Eagle Looking at Me with Sharp Eyes
Action is preferred to static shots of a bird sitting in a tree. Eating, screaming, flying, hunting, fighting shots are what you want. I have lots of shots of eagles and ospreys sitting still in trees. They are uninteresting. Or at least I don't need a lot of them. What I want are shots where the bird is eating, or making noise (beak open, tongue visible), or flying, fighting, or flapping. Here's a shot of a very vocal osprey. I think it was a juvenile whose parents had departed on the Fall migration and it was wondering where its parents went.

An Osprey that was Not Happy
Speaking of sharpness and action, the head/eyes need to be sharp even with the motion. I think it's OK for the wingtips to be motion-blurred, but most/all of the rest should be sharp. For a stationary bird, this means using a shutter speed no slower than 1/focal_length. For a bird in flight, 1/1000sec (or faster) is more appropriate. Which can be a challenge in dim light, particularly if you can open no wider than f4 or f5.6. Boost the ISO before you drop the shutter speed.

Bald Eagle in Flight
You can't have too much glass. Except when you have to carry a heavy lens, or when the bird gets too close to you. Sometimes they fly so close that the bird fills the frame, but much more often they are far away. More magnification is always going to help. And even if the bird is too big to fit in the frame, a full-body shot with wings clipped out of the frame can still be pretty good. Here's one where the eagle was so close that I had a hard time keeping its entire body in the frame and I clipped one of the wings. I saved the photo by cropping the other wing too.

Bald Eagle with Fish in Awful Light
You have to put yourself in a position where you are likely to see birds. That means going where they are, even if it's hot/cold or tiring to walk to them. Even though I've seen eagles near my house, they aren't often there. I go to them in local parks where I know they have nests or like to hunt.

Eaglet in Nest
The general rule of thumb is that you shouldn't make the bird react to your presence. I kind of believe that, and I kind of don't. I won't harass a bird, but I will approach. I'll try to do it without spooking the bird. After all, the goal is to photograph it, which I can't do if I scare it away. So I'll follow a bird if it's moving along a trail. Here's one that I followed, not because I was stalking it, but because it kept flying farther down the same road that I was walking on.

Hawk in Flight

Here's a shot where the osprey was clearly reacting to my presence by checking me out. It flew over me a few times and stared at me. Good thing I'm not a fish, or it would be thinking of me as dinner. I did nothing to disturb this bird, but it came by to see me.

Osprey Stares at Me
Backgrounds matter. A lot. I prefer a clean, clear blue sky. But if I only go out on great-weather days, then I won't get to go out much. Summers can have the drab, humidity-saturated skies even on clear days. Winters have so many overcast days. Because bird-in-flight shots or bird-in-tree shots usually mean the birds are above me, I get a lot of skies for backgrounds. Here's a shot of a juvenile bald eagle that I took at Blackwater NWR on a hot, humid day with drab skies.

Juvenile Bald Eagle

Continuing on the theme about bad backgrounds, here's one that drove me nuts. It would have been a great shot of a hawk eating, except for that outhouse.

Hawk
Photographers talk about the rule of thirds. You don't want to bulls-eye the shot. While I think that has its place, when it comes to birds in flight, it's often a challenge just to get the whole bird in the frame and in focus, much less compose for the bird to be "flying into the empty space". I think it's OK to put the bird smack in the middle of the frame while shooting, and if there's enough resolution, crop to get the composition you want. Lately I've favored tight crops that really show the subject.

Great Egret
I like shots where the light is shining through feathers.

Osprey in Flight
Some birds get into an elaborate and energetic behavior to lead you away from a nest or juveniles. If you see that, leave the area.
Obey the rules. If a park closes an area to allow birds to nest in peace, stay out of the closed area. If the park requires you to stay on designated paths, stay on them; don't go off-trail. The Fish and Wildlife Service or other authorities sometimes form a buffer zone around occupied eagle nests. I obey the rules, even when I see others breaking them.
Chimp. Also known as, look at the histogram and photo on the back of the camera to decide whether you're getting the exposure right. And you have to do this frequently as the light changes. The sun moves, clouds roll in or out, some subjects are in shade, and the next ones might be in full sun. Check that histogram frequently. And turn the blinkies on.
Did I remember to say: Patience. Persistence.

Ospreys

They are very tolerant of people up close. It is relatively easy to photograph them. They are active birds that like to fly around and look for fish and they will even fly around with a fish to show off. Be ready with the camera and you'll get shots of them if they're anywhere close to you. If you flush them by approaching a nest, or wander by where they are hunting, they will usually circle around to look at you. Be ready when they come back by, and try to get to a spot where you can avoid back-light.
Ospreys and bald eagles have a hate/hate relationship. They occupy much of the same nesting territory, and bald eagles will try to steal ospreys' fish.

Eagle Tries to Steal Fish from Osprey
They nest in dead trees and even on platforms erected for them. Their nests are large, always near water, and easy to find. And they won't fly away if you approach the nest. The dead trees make it easy to photograph them: there won't be any leaves in the way. The trees fall over sooner or later, and the nests fall down when the ospreys are gone for the winter. When they return from the Spring migration, they set to work nest building. I see them returning to the nest with sticks. Once I was walking along and saw a shadow, then looked for the bird, spotting it in time to see an osprey flying toward a dead tree. It did not even try to land; it grabbed the end of a branch and with a loud snap, broke the branch and headed for the nest.

Osprey with Nest Material
They often have a fish when they're flying. They take the time to turn the fish so as to be able to fly with it causing the least wind resistance, so the fish's tail is usually near the osprey's tail. They also start eating at the head end, so it's common to see the osprey flying around with a headless fish.

Osprey with Fish
Ospreys are territorial. Here's a juvenile flying through an adult's territory. The adult is not happy and it lets the interloper know.

Adult Chases Juvenile Away
They arrive in Northern Virginia in late Spring (March); they depart south around September. I've seen them on the Gulf Coast of Florida in December in large numbers near Port Charlotte (Boca Grande) and Tampa (Honeymoon Island). I've seen them in Virginia along the Potomac. They're usually around open water in the Spring and Summer. Many of them migrate to South America to escape the winter in North America.
No need to use exposure compensation; they are mostly light-colored when seen from below and I find the camera meters just fine whether shooting in clear or overcast skies.
Ospreys hunt by flying over water and looking down for fish. Sometimes they seem to hover while flying forward into the wind. They see prey, dive, submerge, then emerge with the fish. After they take flight from the water, there's a mid-air whole-body shake to fling the water off. This sequence offers several opportunities to capture the hover, dive with feet trailing, last-moment of the dive with the feet forward, the splash, the emergence, the water shake-off, and the flight to a tree to eat.

Hovering by Flying into the Wind, Matching the Wind Speed
About that dive, at the start of the dive the background will likely be the sky. As the bird drops, the background will become trees/buildings on the opposite shore, followed quickly by a change to a water background. This confuses my camera if I'm tracking focus. I've botched several good looks at this sequence by getting the last frame before the splash, and the splash, and the emergence out of focus. The distance to the subject will not change significantly during the dive; time to keep shooting but let go of the focus button.

The Fishing Hover

About to Strike

Bald Eagles

They don't like to be around people; they usually fly away if you approach. The only place I've seen where this isn't true is at the Conowingo Dam. There, the birds don't care if you walk right under the tree they're in. The birds will just sit there and ignore people.

Bald Eagle Eating a Fish
They like to hang around vacant osprey nests.

Bald Eagle Mating Pair on Vacant Osprey Nest
They seem to sit in a tree and wait for prey to come along. If an eagle snatches a fish or other prey, another eagle will often attempt to steal the catch. This makes for great action to photograph, if you can be in the right place at the right time and ready to shoot. They don't seem to fly around hunting. They sit and wait for prey, then they take off and swiftly fly to their target, maybe with a circle or two, then they dive and snatch. While flying off with a catch, they will look down and rearward to see what they got. The typical hunt involves an eagle flying vigorously to the spot it has chosen, then a rapid slow-down with tail feathers spread and legs down, then a dive to a spot near the prey, then a transition to horizontal flight right over the prey, and a quick snatch, climb, and fly-away. When observing, you know a big turn or dive is coming when you suddenly see the wings in profile or the legs come out.
Speaking of hunting, bald eagles would rather let some other bird do the hunting and then steal the catch. I've witnessed lots of ospreys dodging eagles in mid-air flurries of activity. Or an eagle will try to steal another eagle's catch.

Eagles Fighting Over Fish, Which Neither Bird Gets

Juvenile Eagles Fight Over Fish

But eagles themselves are not immune to being harassed by other birds. I witnessed this eagle snatch a fish from the water, only to be chased by a gull.

Gull Chases Eagle
During nesting season, particularly while there are eggs or eaglets in the nest, there is always a parent at the nest. You might only get a glimpse of the parent in the nest, just a hint of that white head and yellow beak. The mate is usually either nearby or hunting. Even if you can't make out any bird while looking through the viewfinder, it's usually worth a shot or two of the nest because I've come home thinking I've gotten nothing, only to find a usable head shot after all.

Bald Eagle in Nest

Bald Eagle in Nest with Mate Nearby
Getting the exposure right for a mature eagle (with the white head and tail) is really hard. Get the head right and the brown body will be dark. Get the body right, and the head will be blown out. Best to expose for the head with a camera that has a good dynamic range and try to recover details from the dark areas in post-processing. I try to use 1/1000 or better on the shutter speed. The long lens coupled with a moving target requires a fast shutter, and even then the feathers might be blurred from motion. The other variable that makes exposure hard is the sky. On a bright, clear day, it's easier to get it right, using no exposure compensation. On a cloudy day, the white head fades into the white/gray skies. Dialing in some positive exposure compensation helps expose the body correctly. Here's one that I almost got right. The day was partly cloudy, and the light was quickly moving between cloudy and direct sunlight. I blew out the detail in the tail feathers because I was set up for cloudy skies and it flew into sunlight.

Bald Eagle Inspects its Lunch
I've done a lot of reading about eagles' habits and photography of them. Some people describe waiting hours in a frigid blind to get a shot. Others talk about never disturbing them. Yet other people go on about never publishing the location of a nest on the web. At least in the mid-Atlantic states, it's not hard to find them; no need to sit in a blind. As for disturbing them, I've seen them sitting in trees or even on ice on a lake while people oblivious to the birds' presence walk by. If they're disturbed, they're perfectly capable of flying to a place where they are happier. And as for nest locations, there are maps on the web with GPS coordinates that show where nests are. It's silly to try to keep their locations a secret.

Loons

These are large water birds. They are excellent divers (they're sometimes called divers instead of loons) and can fly, but can hardly walk. They are a challenge to expose properly because of the black heads, white portions, and reflections on the water. From a boat, hand-holding, I usually shoot at 1/1000, and that can force a wide open aperture with a shallow depth of field that can render only one bird in focus when shooting two or more birds. Watch that aperture and boost the ISO if you have to.
Poses: Periodically they "stand" and spread their wings while shaking the water out.

Loon Shows its Wings

There's the typical serene side-on swimming shot. These get boring pretty quickly.

Side-On

There's the face-on shot.When the head is wet, this can show streaks of water. When the sun comes from the side, one eye will be red, the other dark.

Loon Looks at Me

And the juvenile riding on the back shot.

Hitching a Ride

The head down in the water shot is usually boring because the eyes don't show. But several birds doing the same thing can be interesting.

Looking for Food

The parent feeding the juvenile can be an interesting shot.

Breakfast

Larger juveniles often go neck-to-neck with a parent.

Necks Crossed

Periodically they lift a large webbed foot out of the water for a few seconds.

Bigfoot

Taking flight is a drawn-out affair.

Takeoff Run

They sometimes group together and swim around each other.

It's a Party
I've only seen them in Maine in August; they're easy to find in New England in the summer, and their range extends down the East Coast to Virginia, but I've never seen them here. Their young are seen swimming alongside parents in August.

Adult Loon Feeds Juvenile
An excellent way to photograph them is from a kayak. You'll be low to the water and quiet. This presents some challenges, though. If the water is choppy, then the boat isn't especially still when trying to shoot. The prime problem in choppy water is the tendency for the wind (which is causing the chop) to turn the boat (weathervane) so it's like trying to shoot from a merry-go-round. Another issue is what to do with the camera when not shooting. I use a square cushion that's also a flotation device. I rest the camera on the cushion when I'm not shooting. There's always some water and grit inside the kayak; the cushion boosts the camera out of the water and I can easily push it forward below the deck, or retrieve the cushion and camera with my feet. There's also inevitably some water splashing while rowing, or dripping from the paddle, so I like to keep a towel on top of the camera. I worry about tipping over and falling into the water with my camera, but in 10+ years of paddling, I've never even come close to that. And the other thing I've worried about is losing the paddle while I'm shooting. Invariably I'm paddling, notice something to shoot, put the paddle down straddling the kayak, grab the camera, shoot, hope the paddle doesn't fall in the water. After a few years of juggling paddle and camera, I got a paddle leash, which I've never needed. But that's one less thing to worry about. I also got a short single-blade paddle to keep in the kayak. If I lose the main double-bladed paddle, I can just grab the second one and use it to fetch the one I've lost.
It's a challenge to approach them without spooking them. Best not to chase them. But if you come across them while paddling, it's OK to put the paddle down (don't lose it) and fire away. If they react to you, don't chase them or cut off escape (maybe you're in a cove). Just sit still and let them swim away. I was photographing an adult and juvenile when another adult popped up from a dive and started the penguin walk. That was my clue that they saw me as a threat and I left the area. As interesting as this action is, it shows distress and I do my best not to cause the birds to behave this way.

Loon Parent wants My Attention
Sometimes they'll pop up right next to you. Be prepared to shoot at all times. I got the shot above because I heard the loon's splashes. I was shooting other loons on one side of the kayak, and I turned and shot this one before realizing that it was time to leave. This behavior is likely when there's a juvenile present. If there's no juvenile to protect, they mostly ignore me.
Bright sunlight on their heads brings their red eyes out.

Great Northern Loon
Some of my best shots show them with water dripping from their beaks, or beads of water on their heads. Good shots will often come if you catch them right after they've surfaced from a dive.
These are vocal birds and they splash around a lot. They often give brief hoots to help find each other, especially after a dive. When farther away, they give louder vocalizations that carry.

Playing in the Pool
Just as the sun comes up is the best time to photograph them. Lake water is usually mirror-like, offering calm paddling and great reflections. If there are several birds on a lake, they will congregate, circling in a group, splashing and socializing. In fact, some birds will fly in from nearby lakes to participate in a morning social gathering. During these meetings, there's a lot of movement: swimming around one another, sticking heads underwater, diving, wing spreading, splashing. One or more will dart a head under the surface, then they all will, then most/all will dive. They surface, hoot, regroup, repeat. If you don't try to get too close, they will mostly tolerate/ignore your presence nearby, and they may even surround you after a dive. They may approach you closely; you should not approach them closely.
Their takeoffs and landings are awkward. Takeoffs mean facing into the wind and flapping and paddling to gain speed, usually with wingtips and feet skimming the water until fully airborne. Landings are crashes - they glide to the surface and ski until they slow to a swimming pace.
Juveniles hatch long before I arrive for may annual August trip to Maine. The young birds are about half the size of their parents and covered with brown fur. As they get older, the chest grows white. If I find a relatively large one, which is all I usually see in August, it will be at a stage where the first feathers are appearing on the body.
When they congregate, especially with more than 3 birds together, it's just about impossible to get shots of all of them facing you. Invariably I get some backs of heads, tail feathers, and birds obscuring other birds.
After getting the serene swimming shots, go for action. They will splash, flap, and display wings, often sending water flying. Shots with water in the air always seem more interesting to me.

Hawks

We have lots of red-tailed and red-shouldered hawks in Virginia. They seem not to care about people nearby. I've frequently been able to walk under a tree they've perched in and mostly they ignored me, or stared at me.

Hawk Stares at Me
They're everywhere. I'm sure they're no more common now than when I moved to Virginia, but now that I'm paying attention, I see them all the time. Here's one that was sitting right next to the road. It made no attempt to leave as I photographed it from just across a road, no more than 50 feet away.
Red-Shouldered Hawk
Identification can be a problem. It's hard to distinguish juvenile species. Here's a Cooper's Hawk. I posted this on Facebook and immediately people argued with me about the ID (insisting that it's a Red Shouldered Hawk) until I took the post down. The two species are very similar, and I'm sticking with Cooper's. Why? This bird was MUCH smaller than the many RSH I've seen, a fact that's not obvious from the photo.

Juvenile Cooper's Hawk

Puffins

These guys are fast, eratic, and fun to watch. The wing beat is really fast, so crank that shutter speed up.

Pacific Puffins

Hope for good sunlight or you better have fast glass.

Tufted Puffins

Back Yard Birds

I set some feeders out. It took a few tries to find the right kind of feeders to attract birds and repel squirrels. Then I set my camera on a tripod by the window and left it there. When I see something interesting, I shoot. The birds themselves are pretty ordinary. The real value is the practice in widely varying light. Every time it's different and I have to find the right balance of ISO, shutter speed, and aperture. I usually shoot at f4 to f6.3 so the depth of field is pretty shallow so it's a challenge to get the focus nailed on birds that just don't stay still.