Birds in the garden

[Sajehar]

“Peek-a-boo!”



“UP YOURS, Sajewotsit.”



"That seed's got my name on it, and it's mine, all mine."

[Scally]

Please don't ask me technical questions, I'm a complete ignorahopatamous. Sometimes I just take lots of pictures and eventually get lucky. Actually that has always been my attitude to life and love, be willing to fail but just keep trying

Had an amusing run-in with a wren whilst out walking today: it was defending its' territory by attacking me in a whirr of furious wings, and I was trying hard not to laugh: I mean, how can you take an attack by a bird weighing in at around one ounce seriously?

[Sajehar]

What a fantastic looking bird! I thought woodpeckers were green and iridescent blue. And I thought they lived in forests too, and wouldn't be seen any where near anything so metropolitan as a bird table.
Nothing remotely so exotic has appeared in my garden. You lucky so and so (me being restrained.) I'm dead jealous.

I too can't be arsed reading my manual either (which is online, which I hate) and mainly got faffing about with my camera because I got bored, or restless, waiting for those non-existent finches to turn up.
"Oh, I've got a setting for capturing baby skin tones. I wonder what that's like for birds?" Rubbish, as it turns out. Etc, etc, etc.
The only way to find your way round these cameras is to use it, and mess around. The manuals assume you know what they're talking about. White light balance, anyone? With all those plus and minus signs WITHOUT a word of explanation?
It kept wittering on about ISO numbers WITHOUT explaining what an ISO number actually is.
End result: manual as clear as mud.

If I have one word of advice to offer it's press that shutter like there's no tomorrow for as long as the bird is there.
That's 15 words, actually.
Out of 20, 50, 100 shots, you will have inadvertently taken 3 or 6 good ones. And they'll never be the ones you thought you'd taken. That's the joy of it!

[Scally]

Actually my uncle did once show me how using a foreground improved a composition like a landscape, and its true: landscapes can look very flat and you usually need something in front to add depth. But this doesn't work for birds, which are essentially portraits, where the key is just to get as close as possible to the object, and hold the camera steady whilst shooting. Of course this isn't always possible with birds, especially in the field, you just do the best you can and use maximum zoom.

[madeliaette]

wow....you are getting great shots from the hide, Sajehar!

[Scally]

Yes those close ups are amazing, you can see every feather. More pics please!
here's my 'pic of the day' love these little acrobats:


Oh, and to get the 'border effect' you just choose a faded border in your photo-editing software, I use a free software called Microsoft Digital Image 2006 that I got with a camera some years back. I also use Finepix viewer to create smaller sized images for posting here, because its quick and you can do them in bulk.

[JHR57]

Well Technically she is in our Nesting Box but still in the garden.... I cannot tell you how much pleasure I am getting from this very thoughtful gift of a Bird Box containing a camera..... every little helps in the bid to keep me sane

[susieq]

In her garden my sister has a large decorative ceramic frog ( bit like this one, but it sits more 'upright'

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for the last few years a variety of small birds have used it as a nest box ! Most years they have successfully raised the next generation - except for the year a fox found it ).

this year a pair of coal-tits took up residence - about a week ago we thought the parent birds had been scared off when my sister hung out some washing, but they came back the next day. However on Saturday a cat was seen in the garden and we thought that was it for the little family. Yesterday my sister checked the nest as the parents hadn't been seen for 24 hours; she found that the mother bird had laid 7 eggs, 6 of which had hatched - the chicks were very cold so she brought them into the house and made them a nest from an old towel on top of a hot water bottle. The warmth revived 5 of the chicks so she sent my Bil to the local shop for a tin of cat food and started 2 hourly feeds before giving them a warm bed in the airing cupboard - so far today all 5 chicks are still with us

In the past my sister has successfully raised Magpie and Jay chicks and released them back into the wild in a bird sanctuary just outside of Dorking - if the coal-tits survive they will be the smallest she has raised successfully

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[Scally]

Good luck, sounds like a fascinating project.

[david c]

http://news.distractify.com/fun/nine-ba ... e-process/