Northern Cardinal
As I mentioned in an earlier post I started bird photography quite by accident. Photography was a little slow in the winter anyway but it was really slow during a blizzard when all I could do was look out the window. I notice a number of Northern Cardinals at my bird feeder and so I tried to photograph them. They were a little too far for my lens so I went down to the basement and tried to photograph them from the basement window. This was a bit more successful and one of the photos was later published in Birds and Blooms magazine. This the shot that inspired it all.
I did a little more bird photography that winter but soon became bored with shooting birds at my feeder. You can only shoot so many birds sitting at a feeder. I started thinking of things that I could use for props so the birds would look like they would be in a more natural setting. I also purchased a Tamron 200-5mm lens with a little more reach.
Bird Feeding Station
My birdfeeder sits about 20 feet from the house but about 50 to 75 yards from the nearest trees so I felt I needed to put something around the feeder so they would have some cover during the winter. This usually consisted of a pine tree and some pine branches which provided cover and a nice natural setting in which to photograph them. I also added some branches from a variety of trees. This is a view of my bird feeder from outside the windows.
One of the problems from photographing from a window in the prow of the house is that you are photographing through glass. In my case there are two large picture windows that are fixed so I don’t have any alternative but to shoot through glass. This means that the windows have to be cleaned frequently. It also means I have to deal with glare. It is difficult on a sunny day but on a cloudy day there isn’t much of a glare problem. Fortunately I like to photography during snow storms so that reduces the glare problem.
Camera Setup from Inside
Since the feeder is so close to the windows I found that the birds would take off when I walked up to the window to photograph them. We usually place our Christmas Tree in the prow and I discovered this acted as a great bird blind. My wife has been more than tolerant in allowing me to put the Christmas tree (artificial) up when the snow starts to fly and keeping it up until March. I came up with another approach to use when the tree must come down. One day on a photography discussion forum I mention what I was doing and that my wife said the tree was coming down. Someone, tongue in cheek, suggested I needed some cameo drapes. This got me to thinking so I stopped at Gander Mountain and purchased some cameo burlap. It comes in a fairly large size. I also purchased some suction cups with hooks to hold it on the window. Now when the Christmas tree isn’t up I can use the cameo burlap to build a blind in the window. It is easy to put up and remove and I can configure it to fit my needs on any given day. This shows my view from inside the house with my favorite rocking chair.
Luckily I have a pine forest which acts as a background for my bird photographs. This provides a nice dark background which allows me to capture the falling snow when shooting birds. You can see the nice dark background in the above shot from just outside my windows.
You can see the results of my bird photography at Canadian Hill Farm on my website.
Philip Schwarz Photography Blog 