The low stress way.

I doubt there’s a bird I don’t like. Even the turkey vultures which call this area home, with a face only a mother could love, once on the wing are a thing of beauty.

The other day on our daily ramble, Bert the Border Terrier and I observed a red tailed hawk being mugged by two crows and a California Blue Jay. The jay actually landed on the hawk’s back, in mid-air, and gave him one almighty peck. He came out of the sun, rear three quarters and high, like a Spitfire in days gone by. The evil intruder promptly exited stage left. Just like in days gone by.

The little incident (I don’t carry the 5D with a 400mm lens on our walks, so no picture!) renewed my interest of snapping some action at one of the several bird boxes scattered around the estate, so being a lazy bugger, I set the 5D up with that old stand-by, the Vivitar 283 flashgun, together with that sweet little wireless remote.

Now I wasn’t about to hang about outside while the birds obliged me, so I left the whole thing high upon the old Linhof tripod and repaired to the kitchen, to watch things with those Trinovids, wireless transmitter in hand. True, real pros would have built a blind complete with air conditioning, but I’m a simple fellow at heart and it took the residents of the box some five minutes to return to business as usual. In fact, ten minutes later the bluebirds were using the 5D as a handy perch!

The lazy man’s birding outfit.

Flash was essential to light the shaded area, and the 5D’s less than stellar shortest flash sync shutter speed meant that a short light duration was called for. The 5D was at 1/180th, but the flash is no more than 1/1000 second in duration and that prevails in this instance. So motion blur is simply not an issue, precarious as the Linhof may look at maximum height. The chair in the picture was required as I am shorter than Michael Jordan.

5D, 400mm ‘L’, 1/180, f/13, manual focus, ISO 160, Vivitar 283 flash + remote shutter trigger.

Now while I may be a proud owner of signed copy of ‘An Eye for a Bird’ by the great Eric Hosking, one of the finest bird photographers ever, I have long known that I am simply not going to challenge the best of the best in this genre; but a few happy snaps make the realization easier to live with. On the other hand, given that his famous owl picture was taken by the bird as it flew through a light trigger, I can honestly say I worked harder than Hosking did on this one – I was the one who pushed the button.

These are small birds – the above snap is from one half the original even though the 400mm Canon lens was at its closest focusing distance, so it’s as if I was using an 800mm lens!

Nest building time. Same data as above.

And if you really believe that good photos can be taken with lousy gear, this is an example where only the best equipment could do the subject justice. Time to get the Rot out of your thinking.

The most famous self portrait ever – Eric Hosking’s bird-activated strobe picture