Photographing small birds with a new perch.
04th March 2023
I’m always on the lookout for interesting perches for my bird and indeed other wildlife photography. In view of this last week I was walking along a field edge and I came across some fallen tree branches and on closer inspection on the one side was a lovely collection of ‘Turkey tail’ fungi, so named obviously because of its resemblance to a Turkey’s tail feathers. I tried to lift one of the branches up to take back home with me, a distance of about half a mile, but it was far too heavy because as I found to my dismay, it was connected to a much bigger and heavier branch. Abandoning this for another day I proceeded to look for other likely perches but there were none, at least none as nice as the one I wanted most. I rarely give up so two days later I returned with a chainsaw and cut off a section of this fallen branch to take home, however, I had underestimated the weight of even this small branch, and combined with the weight of the chainsaw by the time I got home I really felt it - even small branches are always heavier than they look!!
The next day I removed the previous perch that I had used for the images of the Goldfinches in mid-air (in the last blog post), and using a battery drill I fixed two new posts to two permanent fence posts and then cut the tops off with a chainsaw and made sure they were even using a spirit level – it’s important to do this. I cut two similar grooves in the perch as with the last perch because it seemed to work well and I fixed the new perch across the top of these posts using very long fencing nails because it was five inches deep and when I will want to change it, it’s much easier than trying to remove very long screws.
I was all set now and the following sunny day I filled the grooves on the new perch with sunflower seeds. (I had kept the usual bird feeders topped up between photo-shoots to keep the birds interested). Once again I removed all these other feeders because it doesn’t take long for birds to locate a new source of food, especially this time of year.
I set up my equipment again as described in the previous blog and below is a small selection of the results.
It's so important to set your perches up to suit the light, everybody knows how sunlight behaves in their own garden so a little bit of effort goes a long way to achieving good results and bright light from the right direction is fundamental for giving these images the 'Pop' an overcast day just can't produce.
Goldfinches fighting.
Chaffinch
Siskin @ 5000/sec
The next day I removed the previous perch that I had used for the images of the Goldfinches in mid-air (in the last blog post), and using a battery drill I fixed two new posts to two permanent fence posts and then cut the tops off with a chainsaw and made sure they were even using a spirit level – it’s important to do this. I cut two similar grooves in the perch as with the last perch because it seemed to work well and I fixed the new perch across the top of these posts using very long fencing nails because it was five inches deep and when I will want to change it, it’s much easier than trying to remove very long screws.
I was all set now and the following sunny day I filled the grooves on the new perch with sunflower seeds. (I had kept the usual bird feeders topped up between photo-shoots to keep the birds interested). Once again I removed all these other feeders because it doesn’t take long for birds to locate a new source of food, especially this time of year.
I set up my equipment again as described in the previous blog and below is a small selection of the results.
It's so important to set your perches up to suit the light, everybody knows how sunlight behaves in their own garden so a little bit of effort goes a long way to achieving good results and bright light from the right direction is fundamental for giving these images the 'Pop' an overcast day just can't produce.
Goldfinches fighting.
Chaffinch
Siskin @ 5000/sec