New Set up For My Back Porch Photography

White-breasted Nuthatch

Last year I produced a blog on a home set up for photographing birds http://photobee1.blogspot.com/2013/08/home -set-up-for-photographing-birds-and.html.

Recently I decided to change my set up by making the container holding the bird seed smaller so that I could hopefully get the birds to stage more on the branches that I had set up. It definitely has worked better. It is simple to do and allows you to stay in the comfort of your house photographing, especially if the weather is bad. Try it out and see for yourself.

Original set up

new set up

Tufted Titmouse, showing why I wanted to change the original set up

White breasted Nuthatch

Northern Cardinal

Tufted Titmouse

Junko eating a winter moth

Tufted Titmouse Launch

English Sparrow

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Home Set up for Photographing Birds and Other Creatures

Black-capped Chickadee on Branch

I have continued to do some photography around my condominium complex and have set up on my back porch perches, so that I could photograph birds coming to eat the sunflower seeds.  I have utilized ideas from Alan Murphy, who I wrote about in October about his two excellent e-books on attracting and photographing birds http://photobee1.blogspot.com/2012/10/new-ebook-on-attacting-bird-for.html.

The first things that we did, was attach a small feeding tray to the railing and fill it every day with sunflower seed.  The birds have gotten used to coming for the food, along with squirrels and a chipmunk.  The chickadees even tolerate us when was sitting on the porch.  The next thing we did, is attached branches to the railing for the birds to land on.  I utilized Gorilla Tape, rather than regular duct tape, to attach the branches, since the gorilla tape is tougher than ordinary duck tape.  I have my camera with my 500 mm lens on a tripod set up in my dining room with the curtains held around the the lens.  Because the distance to the perches, is at the lowest focusing distance of the lens, I added a short extension tube to give me closer focusing distance.Also, distance to the trees in the background is far enough so that when I am shooting at F/4, or lower my background is a nice green blur.

The next part of the project is instead of using the curtains the hide camera and me, I am going to make a camouflage curtain to make it easier for me to see the birds and keep them from seeing me.  After that I am going to get a tree trunk and place it in a Christmas tree stand, drill holes on the back side and fill it with peanut butter to attract woodpeckers and nuthatches.

It's nice sitting comfortably in a chair, watching all the activity, photographing the birds and mammals, and having a drink of whatever you like right at hand.

From the dining room looking outside

Set Up

Looking Toward the Camera and Lens

Eastern Gray Squirrel

Mourning Dove

Tufted Titmouse

Tufted Titmouse

Other Birds Seen on the Cape

Red-breasted Merganser-Male

During our birding trip on Thursday we also saw other species of birds in Provincetown harbor besides the gulls and the thick-billed murre. There were red-breasted mergansers and common eiders swimming and feeding.

Red-breasted Merganser-Female

Common Eider-Male

Common Eider-Female

After we had left Race Point we stopped at the Beech Forest, where the usual common passerines hang out. In fact, if you bring some sunflower seeds and put them in your palm Black-capped-Chickadees and tufted titmouse is will come down and feed right out of your hand. The birds are very used to people since feeding them by hand has been going on for many years and families will bring their children there and let the child feed the birds. A great way for children to learn about and enjoying nature.

Tufted Titmouse Feeding from Hand

Black-capped Chickadee Feeding from Hand

Other birds present at the Beech Forest, included red-breasted woodpeckers (unable to photograph) white-breasted nuthatch, white-throated sparrow and Blue Jays.

White-throated Sparrow

White-breasted Nuthatch

Blue Jay

The last interesting bird was a nice close-up of a juvenile Horned Grebe in Wellfleet Harbor.

Horned Grebe