new to wildlife shots

Photodiva

Photodiva

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Carol
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I'll try my hand at most things, but wildlife has got to be the hardest yet! Went to a Kent Wildlife 'Day', took a few shots, saw very little in the way of 'wildlife', precious few butterflies and those that I saw flitted off pdq. Saw a couple of 'blue darters'? and a huge dragonfly, but all eluded the camera. there were banks of buddleia but b*gger all butterflies. I think I captured one white one and a bee on a flower. Went to see what a 'hide' might reveal - sweet nothing, even though there weren't any people around. Just how do you do it? What do you need to be even marginally successful?
 
well for birds, its the wrong time of year...a lot of birds are hiding away at the moment, because they will be molting feathers, that's why most of us switch to butterflies, moths, this time of year...me myself, don't think' there,s been a great deal of butterflies about this year...normally very good on buddleia ..mark.
 
Patience..............:thumbs:
 
I know next to nothing about capturing flying creepy crawlies ( aka flutterbys) but, in all seriousness, it's well worth getting to grips with BIF, especially ducks. They make excellent subjects for keeping your reaction time up to speed during the summer- in other words keeping your eye in for winter sports such as footie & RU! :)
 
Patience and lots of time to invest..

We all have various species for types of year. At the moment for me is female deer with their young....hard but worth the effort.

Down here its been good for butterflies.

Keep at it and as you learn and seal advice you will be rewarded;)
 
Thanks. Patience isn't one of my greatest virtues! Mark, what a good idea - except that birds move a lot quicker than the booted creatures. I've noticed a lack of butterflies and bees in my garden over the past few years, but sort of expected to find more at a wildlife centre. Mind you, I wanted to find a meadow with lots of wild flowers to attract them, but that wasn't what was available to me today. I ended up capturing some pics of the lady Morris dancers ... not exactly wildlife.
 
Photodiva said:
Thanks. Patience isn't one of my greatest virtues!
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I that case, I think you may get frustrated doing wildlife then..............:)
 
Photodiva said:
Thanks. Patience isn't one of my greatest virtues! Mark, what a good idea - except that birds move a lot quicker than the booted creatures. I've noticed a lack of butterflies and bees in my garden over the past few years, but sort of expected to find more at a wildlife centre. Mind you, I wanted to find a meadow with lots of wild flowers to attract them, but that wasn't what was available to me today. I ended up capturing some pics of the lady Morris dancers ... not exactly wildlife.
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Take the mickey out of them about their hobby and you'll soon find that they aren't wild but livid*!! :D


[*paraphrasing courtesy of NTNON]

Seriously, it's not about the speed of the bird's flight, but reacting to the movement - a bit like acquiring the ball player after a goal kick. As Fracs says though you need to be able to stand around for quite long periods of time with nothing happening; not really a problem if you are in a nice setting!
 
I wouldnt dream of taking any mickey!

I get what youre saying, I just guess ill continue to admire those wildlife shots and try in a limited way to improve
 
Bees and butterflies in your own garden make good practice. Bees are buggers. Spent a while this afternoon trying to get some decent bee in flight kind of things. Took 40 or so. Mostly no bees as they always disappear the millisecond you hit the shutter button! Blurred bees and bees' bums are my speciality...

Sadly I think it is down to patience and persistence. Multi shot advance is your friend...and try for narrower apertures as you can miss focus a bit more and get away with it. Helps with the keepers.
 
Yeah, I thought my garden would be the place to start. Seems to be dearth of interesting insect life, and no birds. Last year we had plenty of bees on the wisteria which were impossible to catch waving in the breeze. No birds to speak of - must be the neighbourhood moggies. Until this year we had blackbirds nesting in the wisteria, but not this year. I planted some lavender, but it hasn't made much impact. Apart from that, most of my garden is just greenery. I seem to find lots of dead bees, though. Same as last year. I live close to a heath, but that is pretty barren. Is wildlife a thing of the past?
 
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You could try putting up some bird feeders, a few nice looking perches, sit somewhere dark, keep still & wait!

I'm sure you'll get something to keep you occupied.
 
Photodiva said:
Yeah, I thought my garden would be the place to start. Seems to be dearth of interesting insect life, and no birds. Last year we had plenty of bees on the wisteria which were impossible to catch waving in the breeze. No birds to speak of - must be the neighbourhood moggies. Until this year we had blackbirds nesting in the wisteria, but not this year. I planted some lavender, but it hasn't made much impact. Apart from that, most of my garden is just greenery. I seem to find lots of dead bees, though. Same as last year. I live close to a heath, but that is pretty barren. Is wildlife a thing of the past?
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Wildlife is not a thing of the past Carol but patience is ;) My Sister in law lives two doors away and was complaining that she had put two Coconut shells up with suet in them and nothing had touched them. She asked why I got all the birds in my garden :lol: I told her just to give them time and they will find it, a week later the first signs of birds nibbling away are showing :thumbs:
 
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Ha ha. if I sat around in my garden for too long doing nothing my husband would ask why I wasn't doing any work! We don't have a very large garden, and my husband uses his garage for tinkering around with cars, so there's always hammering, grinding, welding going on, not to mention all his clutter that spills out. Added to that the local mog population that uses the garden as a walk through and a toilet, I've never felt it was particularly conducive to birds. We used to find a few frogs, but they are few and far between. Only seen one this year.

What time of year do you put bird feeders up?
 
All year round Carol. Put a couple out for a while and see what happens, you may be surprised........:thumbs:
 
Went past Robert Dyas lunchtime and bought a bird feeder. Now just sit back and wait ... :-)
 
Only thing I'd add to the good advice above is I suggest you try sunflower hearts in a feeder - most birds seem very keen on them.

If you don't mind feeding live foods then mealworms are excellent. Many birds will do almost anything for live mealworms (some people find the dried mealworms equally successful, but we've had no luck).

Once the birds are used to food being available they will visit fairly regularly and they will come within a few feet for mealworms.

Insect photography can be very difficult, as you have found. Its a bit late for this year but planting a few things that insects like could help.

Dave
 
Last few years we had nothing but a black bird visit our garden.

THis year we increased the amounts of feeders and in different location along with different foods and presto. Gold finches, sparrows, starlings along with various other birds. My wife feeds them daily and after a couple of months the sparrows don't fly of when were in the garden.

I would get a few more and place them around he garden and wait to see what turns up:)
 
So long as the feeder is up a bit away from access by cats Carol then you got no probs. It will take time but it will be worth it. Buy a couple of Coconut shells with suet in, and then once empty you can make your own kind of filling for them.
 
Don't know if you would be interested in things that are any smaller than bees, but I can usually find flies, and they quite often sit still for a while. And if you get down towards ground level (I use a pair of gardener's kneepads), and slow right down and let your eyes rove around a small area at a time and get used to looking on a smaller scale, you may be surprised by what you find.

Size-wise, bees might (I'm guessing) be at the small end of what you can handle with your current gear, but you can get a relatively inexpensive close-up lens that you can use like a filter that will let you take pictures of smaller things. You might (or might not!) find that plants can be unexpectedly interesting when you start to look at them at close quarters. Most of the stuff on my flickr account used close-up attachments - I don't own a macro lens (the good ones tend to be rather expensive).

FWIW, I don't have many pictures of bees and butterflies - I find them to be particularly difficult subjects because they move around so much. Fortunately there is plenty else at the scale of bees and a bit smaller that is much easier to photograph.
 
thanks for the hints and help. The bird feeder came with some 'fat balls', so its ready to go! I hung it at the edge of our gazebo covered in wisteria. I don't have a macro lens and I'm not particularly fond of creepy crawlies! Hey, even if I don't capture a decent image, at least the birds will benefit.
 
Photodiva said:
thanks for the hints and help. The bird feeder came with some 'fat balls', so its ready to go! I hung it at the edge of our gazebo covered in wisteria. I don't have a macro lens and I'm not particularly fond of creepy crawlies! Hey, even if I don't capture a decent image, at least the birds will benefit.
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Hi Carol, I do not want to put a dampner on things for you ;) But if the fat balls came in those plastic nets :shrug: then buy ( I know more expense:D ) one of the cheap wire peanut feeders and take the fatballs out of the nets and put them in that. Just to make you aware that if the birds get their claws or feet trapped in the plastic mesh it can cause serious injury to them often resulting in death as they try to break free from them :(
 
u8myufo said:
Hi Carol, I do not want to put a dampner on things for you ;) But if the fat balls came in those plastic nets :shrug: then buy ( I know more expense:D ) one of the cheap wire peanut feeders and take the fatballs out of the nets and put them in that. Just to make you aware that if the birds get their claws or feet trapped in the plastic mesh it can cause serious injury to them often resulting in death as they try to break free from them :(
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Never fear: i got one of those wire cylinder contraptions and the fat balls werent in any netting. Now its bucketting down so any birds will be miles away!
 
Photodiva said:
Never fear: i got one of those wire cylinder contraptions and the fat balls werent in any netting. Now its bucketting down so any birds will be miles away!
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Do you need plans on how to build a bird shelter Carol :shrug: :lol::lol:
 
Well, an update. Since 23 August (3 weeks) the fat balls have been in the garden. Firstly I put them hanging under the wisteria on the pergola that covers the patio. Then my OH insisted I put them 'in the open' so he bought a pole and they are now visible to all! We've been fairly quiet, no noisy stuff and I've stayed well way 'cos there's so many spiders' webs all over! So far, I haven't seen anything anywhere near it. It hasn't been touched. I hardly ever see birds in the sky, never mind in the garden. Yesterday I noticed a couple of magpies on a neighbours roof and caught sight of a crow sat on the top of the nearby telegraph pole. But nothing in the garden. Its like we have a force-field around us! A friend was commenting that their garden is visited by all sorts ...

Do these fat balls go off? How often do you have to replace them?
 
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They shouldn't go off. Took birds here about 3 weeks to use the feeder I put out. They are not called bird brains for nothing :)

Anywhere you put a feeder needs to be tricky to be reached by lurking cats. Mine are hung off hanging basket brackets right next to the house. They're about 7 feet or so off the ground. They also like somewhere to perch before feeding so they usually go to and from something handy nearby. I have a nearby hedge so they fly to the hedge then take it in turns to fly from the hedge to the feeder and back.
 
Patience and practise is the key. As already suggested start in your garden. Add some feeders and get in some practise. Get to know your equipment and its limitations. Decide on an area you want to concentrate on as Wildlife is a very broad term and covers macro to long range with quality zooms or prime lenses.
Any successful wildlife photographer got there over several years of learning and adding to his / kit. As well as photography you should join a few wildlife forums which will also have a wealth of information available.

John.
 
salacalvet said:
Patience and lots of time to invest..

We all have various species for types of year. At the moment for me is female deer with their young....hard but worth the effort.

Down here its been good for butterflies.

Keep at it and as you learn and seal advice you will be rewarded;)
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:agree:
Getting birds in your garden will get easier as the days get shorter and colder, if sunflower hearts don't work then i would give up as most garden birds love them.
My Mrs goes mad about the time i spend looking for barn owls :bat: and the guys with no patience tell me "there aren't any round here" but it makes it worth while when they put on a show.

5489206983_2d7ff0fc52.jpg
[/url] Barn Owl by Neil Brimacombe, on Flickr[/IMG]

ATM i go and watch these 3 nights a week, they are only coming out when it's too dark for photography but for me it's not all about getting "that shot" because i enjoy watching wildlife far more than Xfactor :bonk:
 
Super Owl shot Neil we used to have some round here but haven't seen any for about 3-4yrs now.
 
Jealous to say the least
 
One hopes that patience and tenacity will be rewarded! I put up a sunflower seed mix bird feeder and another with a fat ball in it. So far, zilch. Just waitin' and hopin'. :)

A mate got one of those sonic thingys to keep foxes out of his small garden. Wonder if this would work on the moggies as well and if so, would it adversely affect the birds and other things (like frogs)? Anyone know?
 
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Update: nearly another month gone by, still no birds. heard a few tweeting somewhere, but haven't managed to see any, esp near the bird feeders. Ho hum.
 
Are you able to put up a few pics in this thread Carol of your garden and surrounding habitat.
 
Can't you retweet the location of the food to them??
 
DemiLion said:
Can't you retweet the location of the food to them??
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Ho ho :)

Actually, in the last week I've noticed that the feeder with the seed in it has gone down, whether that's the wind blowing it about and spilling it or birds I'm not sure. I filled it up a bit yesterday. I haven't actually spotted any birds in the garden. One of the fat balls in a holder seems to be a bit 'picked at' so may be there is something going on. Unlikely to be squirrels. I'll post some pics of the garden when I get a mo. Just a cute little robin would be nice - seems to be an impossible ask round here.
 
Pics of your garden will help Carol.
 
This morning, before 9am saw the seed feeder swinging a bit to much for the wind and then caught a glimpse of a very twitchy blue bird nervously pinching seeds. So there is bird life after all! Now all I have to do is hope they get over their flighty-ness ... well I never !
 
Post some photographs of the feeder(s) and the garden, as others have suggested. Birds have their own preferences - particularly if they're not starving and have a choice of 'venues' - and sometimes take a while to start feeding. One other thought, you doubt if squirrels are a problem, but do you have rat visitors? We had quite a few, probably because my wife was feeding them - to the neighbour's horror - and they can scare birds away. They can climb onto a feeder quite easily.
 
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