Firecrest, a photographer's nightmare!!
21st October 2015
Along with Goldcrests, Firecrests are the smallest birds in Europe, their diminutive size combined with their relentless movement is a big problem for a birdwatcher and an even bigger problem for a photographer.
All it takes is one leaf in the wrong place and they are either obscured or even fully hidden. Their feeding habits draw them to thickly wooded areas as they search relentlessly for insects in every nook and cranny. However, there is one way to try and locate them because they have a great liking for Holm Oak trees, unfortunately there aren't many of these trees in this part of the country. Norfolk has many and that is likely where you will find Firecrests, as an alternative you can try Sycamore but wherever they are, they are always difficult to pin down.
On the Balearic island of Mallorca Firecrests are numerous and again they favour Holm Oak, but they are in virtually every wooded area. I have never heard so many calling and singing birds, but still they are terribly difficult to photograph. I even had two birds briefly fighting over territory on the roadside not ten feet from where I stood.
I spent an hour most days trying to pin these birds down, often I could see them moving around the tree canopy and sometimes coming right down to eye level. Because of their small size it would be ideal to use a 1.4 tele-converter on your lens but this makes focussing too slow because of the dim areas where these birds operate. Therefore, it was the bare lens on f4 and an elevated ISO to create a decent shutter speed in order to try and get a reasonably sharp shot.
I managed to isolate birds a few times away from too much dense cover and here is one of the results.
All it takes is one leaf in the wrong place and they are either obscured or even fully hidden. Their feeding habits draw them to thickly wooded areas as they search relentlessly for insects in every nook and cranny. However, there is one way to try and locate them because they have a great liking for Holm Oak trees, unfortunately there aren't many of these trees in this part of the country. Norfolk has many and that is likely where you will find Firecrests, as an alternative you can try Sycamore but wherever they are, they are always difficult to pin down.
On the Balearic island of Mallorca Firecrests are numerous and again they favour Holm Oak, but they are in virtually every wooded area. I have never heard so many calling and singing birds, but still they are terribly difficult to photograph. I even had two birds briefly fighting over territory on the roadside not ten feet from where I stood.
I spent an hour most days trying to pin these birds down, often I could see them moving around the tree canopy and sometimes coming right down to eye level. Because of their small size it would be ideal to use a 1.4 tele-converter on your lens but this makes focussing too slow because of the dim areas where these birds operate. Therefore, it was the bare lens on f4 and an elevated ISO to create a decent shutter speed in order to try and get a reasonably sharp shot.
I managed to isolate birds a few times away from too much dense cover and here is one of the results.