Back Garden Bird Photography

An easy way to get better at bird photography

Garden bird photography is the ideal way to practice wildlife photography as you get to control more variables than you ever will when out in the field photographing birds. With a good feeder set up, you effectively create your very own bird photography studio.

For this post, I’m going to show you how I experimented with some feeders in my garden. I’ll explain how and where to position bird feeders to get good photos, including how to add more natural perches. Another really important aspect is what bird feed to use to attract birds into your garden for photography, so I’ll include some recommendations and things to consider.

This is a really fun and easy way to practice bird photography, so I’m going to take you through my process of how I used feeders for bird photography in my back garden.

Bird Feeder Location - Important Considerations

Even before the feeders arrived in the post, I started thinking about where I was going to place the feeders. Last winter I installed a tall log post in our garden, and while the location was convenient for watching birds from the sitting room, it wasn’t great for photography because the background ended up just being the garden fence.

This time I needed to plan my background a bit more intentionally.

What’s my Background?

Ideally I want to add some distance into the background and make sure that it isn’t cluttered. Beyond my garden lies a grassy area with a beech hedgerow and a row of spruce trees, so the dark foliage is perfect. However, if the trees had paler bark, like silver birch, this could have been distracting.

Top Tips

💡 If you can, pick a background that is 2x the distance from the photo perch as you are to the perch
💡 With a background further away it’s easier to take photos where the bird is sharp and the background is out of focus.
💡 Bright branches in the background that might show up in your image so take a few test shots first to get it right.
💡 If you don’t have trees or natural vegetation as your background, remember that out of focus buildings and fences can also look great - darker colours work best.

Where’s the Light Coming From?

I also needed to think about which direction the light was coming from and how it changed through the day. My garden is south facing so I would often be shooting into the sun during the day, but around sunrise and sunset the feeders and therefore the birds would be sidelit. I can also move around in the garden to change the angle of the light.

For garden bird photography, I prefer to have the bird frontlit, with the sun behind me and catching the bird’s eye, but I also really enjoy taking backlit images, with the sun behind the bird, for creating a more moody image.

The nice thing about garden bird photography is that you can practice with all sorts of light and you can see the difference that the different lighting makes. You can get very creative, and this will teach you a lot more about light, and you might even find that you can create unique images in what is conventionally thought of as “bad light”.

Top Tips

💡 Experiment with different times of day as the sun changes direction, as well as shooting in harsh weather, different lighting conditions and different seasons.

💡 Experiment with shade from nearby trees or buildings, which gives a nice even light - as will cloud cover.

💡 On cloudy days, make sure the sun is behind you to capture the glint in the bird’s eye.

Where Will I Photograph From?

The other thing to consider with garden bird photography is where you will be taking your images from. This really does depend on your garden and house layout, as well as how habituated the birds visiting your garden are to human presence. Some garden birds get so used to people that you can photograph them while standing still in your garden, but there will be some birds that won’t tolerate you and won’t show up unless you make a little bit of effort to hide.

With a 600mm equivalent lens and a 1.4x teleconverter, I was able to shoot from a comfy chair just inside the patio doors which was a bit different than my usual shooting locations! I could get used to having a cup of coffee to hand.

Top Tips

💡 Use a curtain for cover if you are shooting from inside. If you’re outside, you can get pop-up hides (e.g. Tragopan), photograph from your shed, or make something very simple to hide behind, like a sheet with a hole for your lens!

💡 Your location will depend on the length of your lens, so take some test shots and see how close you want to be for the images you have in mind. Remember though that you might want to leave some space within the frame and show or parts of the perch you photograph the birds on.

Great spotted woodpecker on my garden tree trunk

Which Bird Food to Get

A lot of garden birds are quite opportunistic when it comes to food and will eat all sorts of seeds and dried invertebrates. There is so much out there for sale, but it’s really important that you get quality food.

The RSPB recommends avoiding salted food and not to put out loose peanuts, hard foods or chunks of bread during spring and summer as parent birds might feed their young with it and they can choke on it.

I like to put out some Nyjer seeds to attract finches such as goldfinch and siskin. Nyjer seed (also known as niger or thistle seed) is the preferred food of many common garden birds, but in particular seed eating birds and finches.

Top Tips

💡 Knowing the food preferences of the birds in your area can help you attract birds into your garden for photography.

💡 Remember to clean feeders regularly to keep them clear of bacteria and fungal spores.

Adding Natural Perches for Bird Photography

After a few days, the birds had got used to the garden feeders and were regularly feeding from them. But before I started shooting, I wanted to tweak the set up by adding some more natural perches. Introducing branches and mossy twigs would give the images a bit more of a natural feel, and provide some variety.

I did this by gathering some old, mossy and lichen covered twigs as well as some branches with rowan berries to add to the composition. I experimented with various methods of attaching these, including drilling a hole in the tree trunk that I’d placed next to the feeders. But by far, the easiest way was using clamps to attach the branches to a small plank that I’d drilled into the tree trunk. This way it was easy and quick to switch between branches of various sizes.

Top Tips

💡 Avoid having the twig dominate the frame, so pick something that the bird will look natural landing on, and with few distractions like bright patches or snapped off twigs

💡 Change perches often for variety in your images

💡 Place the perch slightly behind the feeders and the birds will often look in that direction, i.e. towards you.

Final Thoughts

After some trial and error, I took away some of the feeders and blocked up some feeding holes in order to reduce the choice of landing positions that the birds could opt for, and to get the composition I was looking for. You have to work with what you have, but the more you can reduce the amount of places a bird can land, the more likely (and the more often) it will land on your perch.

My preferred approach to wildlife photography is out in the field, photographing natural behaviours in the wild. But by placing feeders and perches in my back garden, I could try different set ups and combinations. Overall, it’s such a great way to experiment, learn and get better at photography in a more controlled environment. This really is a fun and easy way to practice bird photography, so if you don’t have bird feeders in your garden, I highly recommend it for garden bird photography!

In the FieldEspen Helland10 October 2021Comment