Page 11 - Backyard Bird Photography: How to Attract Birds to Your Home and Create Beautiful Photographs

jays flying off with such things as cashews, almonds, and Goldfish crackers, the shots of the

birds flying off with the peanuts in their beaks are the most satisfying to me. I set the
camera on shutter priority with the shutter speed at 1/2000 second, 1/3200 second, and
even 1/4000 second and focused on a spot just off of the feeder in the direction that I
expected the bird to fly.

In July of 2004, the 28–300mm lens paid off when I photographed an Allen’s
Hummingbird in flight as she rose off the oriole feeder after drinking the sugar water

there. I set the camera on shutter priority at 1/3200 second and captured a really neat
image of this bird, which has been published in numerous field guides. Fortunately, the
sun was shining brightly enough that I could take the photograph at only 800 ISO, so the
image is of a high quality.

I have used two small lenses to photograph hummingbird nests, neither of which were
in my yard. In the first instance, I was given a tip on an Allen’s Hummingbird nest that
had been built on the stem of a bush right outside the front door of the apartment of a

friend who lived in Santa Monica. It was March of 2004, just days after I had purchased my
Digital Rebel, and off I went every morning to photograph this hummingbird nest, which
contained a female and two eggs, only one of which hatched. I followed the progress of this
little hatchling from the day he came into the world until he flew out of the nest for the
first time several weeks later.

Allen’s Hummingbird chicks in nest

During this shoot, I used my 18–55mm lens with a built-in flash in order to shoot down
on the nest as I was standing on a stool. One of my favorite images was taken when the
chick was only one day old, and you can see his tiny beak opened wide in anticipation of
being fed by his mother. Nine days later, I took another photograph of this bird with the
28–300mm lens and the built-in flash, this time a profile as the chick raised his head up

out of the nest to search for his mother and the food she would be bringing.