Bird Photography

I have always enjoyed birds of all kinds most of my life and enjoy sitting and just watching them.   In California near the beaches, it is amazing to see how shorebirds look for their food including watching them dive into the water.  Back In the 1980’s, I worked very closely with songbirds, shorebirds, and raptors at the Missouri Wildlife Rescue Center and learned a lot about them when I was there.

Bird Photography is a great way to capture the wonderful birds that the Lord has given us to enjoy.  This kind of photography is extremely popular, and some professional photographers do nothing but photographing birds.   Today people use their phone camera to capture a nice photograph to share on social media. 

Planning the Day

The first action I do is do the research and look for the areas that birds hang out at.   This could be your local zoo, park, or somewhere with lots of water in the area.  Wildlife refuge areas are good places to find migrating birds.  I usually have a wide-angle camera with a Canon 24-70mm f/2.8 on a Canon R6 Mark ii and the Canon R7 with the Canon 100-400 f/4.5-f/8 with a 1.4x extender. Most of the time I will take a tripod or monopod with a Gimbal so that when I spot a subject, I can react fast.  Both hummingbirds and songbirds move fast and do not sit around very long.  Shorebirds tend to say in or near the water and a little easier to get close to.   It is just a waiting game so finding a spot and sitting there quietly seems to work best.