Designing a bird shooting station?

[ScottyP]

Hi,

I am not enough into bird work to justify investing in a 500 or 600mm lens, but I like feeding them, and thereby luring them in close for easy shooting with my 70-200 lens. My past setup was to hang feeders on the old awning frame over my deck, but the mess it made had become such that I am stopping that.

Now I want to set a post for bird feeder(s)s in the ground outside my picture window, mask off everything but a little hole to shoot thru, and let the mess happen in the grass. How does this sound:

A 4 x 4 post in the ground. A cross arm of some kind from which to hang the feeder. A thing like a flag holder or two mounted below so I can cut branches and have them stick out away from the feeder, so I can get shots of birds on a branch, not birds on a feeder.

Has anyone done something similar? I welcome input.

Thanks!

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

I put a feeder on a hanger outside my spare bedroom window next to a crabapple tree that they like to sit in. Then, I used my 100-400mm L (at 400mm) while I was inside with the window open. I did not add any camo, but that might have helped. The birds are very sensitive to the click of the shutter.

I also installed a fountain with fresh water which they love as much as the feeder.

I found that a better beamer attached to my flash helped reduce shadows, I could have used it more.

This is a female red wing blackbird caught as she dropped off of a tree branch headed for seeds on the ground under the feeder.

The pine siskins love to take a shower as well as drink. I put some rocks in the fountain so they had a place to stand and shower..

This is a wide angle view from my front porch, the bedroom and window are on the right. I had three kinds of feed, sunflower seeds, bird seed, and thistle which the finches and siskins love. Sometimes there were dozens of them on the thistle netting. We also had raspberries and rhubarb, and you can see the sunflowers sprouting below the feeder. They sometimes get 10-12 ft high late in the summer.

 

[BigBrother]

This is my Golden Eagle hide and birds drinking station

 

[BigBrother]

Great Tit. Birds drinking and bath station. Canon 1D mark II, sigma 150 macro (sorry ) f4, 1/350s, ISO 400

 

[sanj]

Beautiful photo BigBrother.

 

[nc0b]

Consider adding a 300mm f/4 IS or 400mm f/5.6 for birds. The 300mm focuses closer, but I usually prefer the reach of the 400mm on my 6D. A 400mm showed up on Craig's list recently for $800 that looked in good shape.

 

[BigBrother]

Dunnock. Canon 1Dmark II, Sigma macro F/2.8 1/750, F3,5 ISO 400. Manfrotto 501HDV. Birds drinking station.