Big Birthday Present

Debby and friend Joanne teamed up to give me a wonderful present - an all day training session with a local professional bird photographer (and former mountaineering guide). I wanted to learn both where to find birds around the area, and also how to better utilize the features of my camera gear.

Tim and I started out in Bellevue at 6AM a week ago. I wasn't sure what to expect, so packed a backpack for some hiking. But Tim had planned to make this an easy trip - we mostly wouldn't need to get out of the car.

We headed east over the Cascades to the vicinity of the Wenas Wildlife Area west of Ellensburg, the site of the Yakima Audubon Society's bluebird trail. Along a gravel back-country road, bird nesting boxes have been placed on fence posts, spaced to correspond to the birds' natural territorial spans. Tim said we would see western bluebirds, mountain bluebirds, and house wrens; he was three for three.

One drives right up to perhaps eight feet from these boxes. The birds do not seem to mind the presence of a car, but if we get out, they become shy. So we just rolled down the window, rested a bean bag on the sill to support the lens, then waited for the birds to pose.

The birds were feeding their young, still in the boxes. Both male and female would forage and return with grasshoppers, beetles, spiders, or berries. They would not directly approach the box, but rather staged their re-entry by landing on a nearby object, then another one or two hops ever closer, then onto and into the box.

Below are some photos from near the nesting boxes. Now I'm a real wildlife photographer (in my own mind), although the choice of image composition/background are somewhat reduced when shooting from inside a car. As can be seen however, background is not important when shooting with my long lens focused at near close focus limit - lens bokeh renders background a homogeneous shade of the predominant background color, either green or tan, with perhaps an upper band of blue.

Next, we headed on east across the Columbia. Suddenly, Tim hung a U-y in the middle of the highway and pulled onto the opposite shoulder. About 30' below the highway was a small brine pond where Tim said we would see some stilts and avocets and could practice our flight shooting technique.

It was a dicey scramble down the steep rocky slope for this elder citizen with heavy camera. Annoyingly, most of my pictures here didn't turn out. I had tried to follow Tim's instruction on overriding the exposure controls for flight shots, then forgot to set it back again. Also, my concentration was interrupted by a need to swat mosquitoes.

The avocets and stilts were protecting their nestlings, which we did not see. They were constantly flying up and down to attract our attention. Both species also performed wholly unconvincing, even hilarious broken wing demonstrations in the marsh grass in an effort to divert us from the nests.

We also saw a killdeer and some Wilson's phalarope on the pond, first sightings for me. My images of them are beneath mediocre; unfortunately none were in focus, one of life's small mysteries and a real disappointment. Maybe I've got a ways to go before I can earn my wildlife photography stripes. I did get one image of a black-necked stilt that pleased me.

My flight shots failed 100%; I need to better learn how to use autofocus to track moving targets, and then need a lot of practice in quickly acquiring focus on a fast moving bird. I have been somewhat successful in the past with slow-moving birds like gulls and pelicans, and also with hawks and vultures circling overhead. But these shorebirds were a big challenge. And the shorter distances necessitated surer reflex motions with the gear than I currently possess.

Tim uses Canon gear, and his setup instructions didn't translate exactly to my system. My camera manual was back up in the car. At over 400 pages and less than illuminating to me, it's a life's work to master it all. (The thought occurred to me that maybe I could get an electronic version on my iphone. Or, create my own simplified version.)

Before the trip, I had told Tim I would really like to find some owls to photograph. So Tim, ever obliging, continued on east past the town of Othello and out on a country gravel road into the potato fields. He parked on the shoulder past a large stack of hay bales and said this was where the owls should be. Right again.

Perhaps three family groups of burrowing owls were out sunning with their fledgelings near the concrete irrigation culverts on both sides of the road. Again, we didn't leave the car - just point and shoot out the window. I concluded the trip feeling once more like a wildlife photographer. Make it easy enough for me and I can succeed.

What are the secrets of  bird photography, you ask? Know where the birds are. Get out there with a camera. Know how to make the camera, the light, and the scene work for you. Be knowledgeable regarding bird behavior. Practice before the trip; be patient during the trip. I increased my skills this week thanks to Debby, Joanne, and Tim.

Tim particularly impressed me as a working photographer. He spends a lot of time on the road getting to the locations where the birds are. And then he spends a lot of time on location getting the good shots. There seems to be very little magic involved, just a lot of effort and a get up and go personality. It is the effort/motivation factor more than anything else that produces great bird images.

We covered a lot of Washington countryside that was new to me, on a trajectory that covered nearly 400 miles and extended well into southeastern Washington. Tim is a reservoir of pinpoint knowledge about where to find birds; the Pacific Northwest is in a  sense his own private zoo/aviary. I was delighted to get an insider's view. His plan for the day's shooting was well thought out and matched my skill level. And it included my first owl pictures in the wild. What a rewarding day!