RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch Photographing Birds

RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch
Photographing Garden Birds

This post is from January 2021. The photography advice below still applies every year — the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch happens on the last weekend of every January.

Observe and photograph garden birds — Blue Tits, Robins, Sparrows and many more.  To play your part in the world's largest bird survey, follow the current instructions on the RSPB website.

To photograph birds in your garden, make sure you have a fairly fast shutter speed — at least 1/500th of a second.  Faster is better, around 1/1000–2000th of a second, especially for Blue Tits, as they twitch a lot and move around very fast.

Unless you're going to set up a hide in the garden, indoors is best.  You'll need to open the window, as the glass can soften the picture and change the colour slightly, and to make sure the birds can't see you, block the open window with cardboard or a sheet.  It sounds basic, and it is, but it works — birds get used to a feeder being in one spot fast, and once they trust it, they'll ignore a closed curtain a few feet behind it.  The trick is patience rather than kit.  A cheap feeder, a decent lens, and staying still for longer than feels natural will get you further than any amount of expensive gear.

A Blue Tit twitches constantly, so a fast shutter is essential to keep it sharp, even upside down or mid-lunge at the feeder.  Patience pays off — the same feeder visited repeatedly gives you plenty of chances to catch the moment.

Robins are among the boldest garden visitors, often the first to check out a new feeder and the last to leave.  They're also naturally territorial, so if you're photographing the same garden regularly, there's a good chance it's the same bird returning day after day, which is worth knowing since it means you can genuinely get to learn one bird's habits rather than a rotating cast of strangers.  Robins are also famously unbothered by people compared to most garden birds, which historically comes from them following larger animals like wild boar through woodland, snatching up insects the digging disturbed — a habit that transferred easily to gardeners with a spade.  It's actually a British and Irish trait — Continental European robins stay shy and stick to the woods, since Britain lost its wild boar centuries ago, robins simply substituted humans for the job instead.

This is what the hide actually looks like — cardboard taped over the window with a small gap cut through for the lens.  Put the lens, with the lens hood, through the hole rather than shooting through the glass — the birds can't see you, and you avoid the glass degrading your image.

The cardboard does two jobs at once: it stops the birds seeing you, and it stops the cold air pouring in while the window's open behind it.  The picture above shows the actual view through the gap — feeder, garden, and the Robin, all framed and ready.  For photography training and further tips, visit my site for courses and 1:1 training at melentraining.co.uk.