{"id":35997,"date":"2015-12-21T07:39:41","date_gmt":"2015-12-21T14:39:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=35997"},"modified":"2015-12-21T12:35:25","modified_gmt":"2015-12-21T19:35:25","slug":"the-events-and-the-birds-that-hooked-me-on-bird-photography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2015\/12\/21\/the-events-and-the-birds-that-hooked-me-on-bird-photography\/","title":{"rendered":"The Events And The Birds That Hooked Me On Bird Photography"},"content":{"rendered":"

My journey to serious bird photography addiction was a convoluted one.<\/p>\n

Much to my surprise I was content for the first few years after retiring from teaching. I missed my kids and the classroom environment for a while but I was ecstatic to finally escape what I called the “peripheral BS”. For several years carpentry consumed most of my free time (I made furniture) but eventually I realized that something was missing. In the classroom I taught natural sciences (Biology, Zoology and Utah Wildlife) and I missed that connection to the natural world. In an effort to fill some of the gap I decided to try my hand at bird photography since I’ve always loved birds\u00a0so I purchased a\u00a0relatively cheap DSLR and telephoto lens (75-300mm or 70-300mm, can’t remember) and gave it a go. When I do something I like to do it well and my goal was stunning bird photographs.<\/p>\n

Ha, fat chance with that lens! Birds\u00a0rarely let me get close enough and when I did the images were crap,\u00a0largely because of the poor quality lens. So I bit the financial bullet and invested about $1400 in much better glass – a Canon EF 100-400mm f4.5-5.6L IS USM lens. My image quality improved immediately and significantly and I had a little more reach. But I had to work very hard before I got the first images I was proud of.<\/p>\n

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\"swainson's<\/p>\n

1\/400, f\/8, ISO 200, Canon Rebel XTi,<\/em> Canon EF 100-400mm f4.5-5.6L IS USM @ 380mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

And this Swainson’s Hawk gave me\u00a0those images. I found the bird in good light\u00a0on May 7, 2007 near Bear River MBR and it let me get unusually close so I had nice detail. I remember watching the hawk through my lens for several minutes and being blown away by the intimacy of being this close to a wild raptor. My experience with this bird was the beginning of my true addiction to bird photography (up to this point I’d mostly been playing around with it) and it was also the dawn of my special affinity\u00a0for raptors. I wanted more of them. Badly!<\/p>\n

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\"old<\/p>\n

So\u00a0a little over\u00a0a week later (5\/16\/07)\u00a0I found myself here, almost 700 miles north of home on the Montana farm where I grew up. It was a melancholy trip because my cousin Ken Dudley had passed away a few months earlier and this was my first experience on the farm without him in many decades. Ken and I were literally like brothers but now the big farm-house was empty. It was a surreal experience for me.<\/p>\n

My only solace\u00a0was the Great Horned Owls on the farm – they were the primary reason I\u00a0made this trip to the farm\u00a0in the first place. I wanted some nice images of them in the old\u00a0barns and granaries that they’d been hanging out in for years. This old granary is one of them.<\/p>\n

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\"great<\/p>\n

1\/200, f\/9, ISO 400, Canon Rebel XTi,<\/em> Canon EF 100-400mm f4.5-5.6L IS USM @ 400mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

But by the time I left the farm to go home I’d had very little success with the owls or any of the other raptors on the farm (mostly Swainson’s, Red-tailed and Ferruginous Hawks) because in most situations\u00a0my new\u00a0400mm lens\u00a0still didn’t have enough reach. I think this owl had pity on me and gave me a\u00a0few moments before it ducked back into the almost pitch black of the granary. But this was the only time I had success with the owls and\u00a0I was completely skunked by the skittish hawks at those focal lengths.<\/p>\n

I longed for the Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS\u00a0USM lens. I remember daydreaming about that lens during the\u00a011 hour drive home. With that lens I could use a 1.4 teleconverter and with the cropped sensor of my camera I’d be shooting\u00a0at an effective 1120mm. I believe that combination is ideal for birds\u00a0but it was way out of the financial reach of this recently retired teacher.<\/p>\n

Then, a miracle. Soon after arriving home I received an unexpected modest windfall – a financial\u00a0gift from Ken’s will. After much deliberation I spent part of it on the lens of my dreams and my bird photography was off to the races. I was in heaven.<\/p>\n

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\"American<\/p>\n

1\/800, f\/8, ISO 400, Canon Rebel XTi,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

A few weeks later my experience with these coots and my new lens provided a new focus for my photography – bird behaviors. Up to this point most of my images were of perched birds (birds on a stick, BOS) but as I watched and photographed these\u00a0coots fighting for several minutes\u00a0I\u00a0began to realize\u00a0that I was fascinated by behaviors. When I got home and looked at these and other images on the screen I understood that my images could capture the nuances of behaviors much better than the naked eye and I was hooked by yet another aspect of bird photography.<\/p>\n

Notice that this dominant coot almost seems to be trying to\u00a0scratch the eyes out of\u00a0the other bird.<\/p>\n

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\"short-eared<\/p>\n

1\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 400, Canon Rebel XTi,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

Soon I was getting images with my new lens that I’d have very little chance at with my 400mm. Short-eared\u00a0Owls had always eluded me because I just couldn’t get close enough but on 7\/4\/07 this one was just close enough with my new gear. I was thrilled.<\/p>\n

By now I was\u00a0completely hooked on bird photography. In fact I\u00a0undoubtedly had a treble hook embedded in both\u00a0lips and it’s been a wild ride ever since. Soon, to accommodate my quest for birds, I bought a camper for the back of my pickup and later\u00a0swapped it out for a camping trailer. Then came blogging. And I’ve met some wonderful people through my bird photography.<\/p>\n

Bird photography\u00a0was a very good move for me.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

Notes:<\/em><\/p>\n