PHOTOGRAPHY HOME

Birds

Click on the thumbnails to see bigger pictures. I took these pictures with the Canon SX20, taking advantage of the 20X zoom lens.

chicken.jpg	duck.jpg	eastern phoebe.jpg	goose.jpg	goose2.jpg
house finch 1.jpg	house finch 2.jpg	house finch 3.jpg	house finch male.jpg	house finch pair.jpg
jay.jpg	northern junco.jpg	redtail.jpg	song sparrow.jpg	vulture.jpg

In December 2010, I built a cedar bird feeder from a plank of cedar cut from a tree in my yard (see Clearing the Land on the Garage pages). Here are the pieces during assembly. I got the instructions where I get instructions for everything, off the internet:

Here is the feeder:

I hung the feeder away from the house on a small maple tree near plenty of cover because birds need to be able to quickly hide from predators like cats and hawks. The disadvantage: I can't get near the feeder to photograph the birds. Pictures from the house are fuzzy.

For example, here is a woodpecker from the house through the glass storm door:

Here is a solution. Put the Canon SD400 on a tripod near the feeder and program it to take a picture every 10 seconds using a CHDK intervalometer. See the CHDK website for details.

I let the camera take a few hundred pictures. Then I save the ones with birds. Here are some examples: