White Throated Sparrow

Canon 30D, 70-200 f/4L, ISO: 200, aperture: f/5.0, shutter: 1/250, filter: no, tripod: no

I was so excited to see my first White Throated Sparrow this spring and even happier to capture several nice photographs of this vividly marked backyard visitor.  We have at least 10 feeders in our backyard so it’s a busy place with a good variety of ‘frequent flyers’, especially in spring and fall. We’re going through 20-30 pounds of seed a month these days so we stay busy refilling feeders and chasing cats away.  The busy air traffic provides a lot of opportunity for photography.

Here’s a few photo tips I’ve picked up from my backyard safaris: 1) Keep your shutter speed up.  Birds move very quickly so a fast shutter is really important in capturing a good portrait.  Bump up the ISO if you need to and open the aperture.  2) Make sure there are plenty of natural staging areas near your feeders.  Bird photographs will look much better if the subject is perched in a tree rather than on a feeder.  The above photo is a good example of that.  The feeder is just outside of the photo. 3) Shoot when there is plenty of light.  The auto focus on my camera and lens combination really struggles in low light conditions.  An f/2.8 lens would help, but is cost prohibitive for most of us.  Also, take your filters off, so your lens captures as much light as possible.  That’s it for today… good birding to you.