When lockdown hit us last year and the enforced confinement to our own safe home habitats was starting to bite I had to do something to keep my photography needs fulfilled.
Blessed with a garden space I set about watching the wildlife & seeing what I could “manufacture” in terms of photographic opportunities birds were the obvious quarry but bird tables didn’t really figure in my thoughts as aesthetically pleasing.
After much deliberation and positioning of said bird table noting where the birds came in from and went off to etc. after several set ups I had it reasonably sussed although it was always 100% dependent on the birds playing ball which they more often than not didn’t so a few more tweaks were needed.
I ended up with a bird table positioned carefully to accommodate a well coloured foliage back ground from one shooting aspect and another which would be backlit in the very early morning light. The bird table was placed in a chimney pot and this was then supplemented with some tall robust branch debris from an old shrub that had been cut down wedged into the chimney pot in the hope that the birds would stop off on these branches before the bird table, which most of the time they now did.
This is an easy thing to set up in the garden and offers great practice for wildlife photography without the expense of going somewhere and having to hunt out the wildlife, you can hone your skills to a degree in the garden ready for the real thing.
I have posted some of my favourite photos taken in the beginning of lockdown some with the feeders in the shot to offer a comparison of what can be achieved with one setup that has been carefully thought about but still giving you the chance for natural looking shots.
