Secrets of Backyard Bird Photography

Book Preface

This comprehensive guide offers a variety of techniques and projects for backyard bird photography. You will learn how to use feeders, perches, backgrounds, blinds, and the proper camera equipment to create professional-quality images. In its simplest form, photographing birds in your backyard is convenient, economical, and very rewarding; ultimately, it can become an addictive adventure.

Any type of backyard, from the wide-open space of a western ranch to a city apartment with a patio or deck, can yield excellent images of local birds. By providing perches, feeders, and water sources, and by utilizing blinds, the photographer can create an inviting environment for birds. With the help of the information in this book and some practice, you will have the tools to begin creating fantastic bird images. The advantages of backyard bird photography are many. The primary advantage is the fact that travel is unnecessary. No flights, car rentals, or hotel rooms; no big expenses paying for meals or gas; no fighting traffic to go anywhere. When your primary location for shooting is your backyard, you don’t even have to shave or put on your makeup. The birds won’t care if you’ve shaved or not.

The second advantage of shooting in your yard is that your bird subjects are often easier to find and capture than wild birds. Because neighborhood birds are accustomed to sharing their space with people they don’t typically see us as a threat—unless you get too close. While you have to travel to the habitats of wild birds to photograph them, backyard birds are easy to find because they come to you. Your backyard is their habitat! This book offers ideas for ways to draw the birds into your camera range.