What bird have you found the hardest to get a shot of ?

[senatore]

Have you had great difficulty in getting a half decent shot of a particular bird ( I don't mean because it's rare but because it's awkward).

For me it's definately the Firecrest.Luckily there's been a couple at a local patch this Winter but to get a shot of one is very tricky as they never ever stay still and dart about all the time.Then they dash off to another tree or bush.You soon feel knackered chasing them round.

Have finally got some decent shots but I've got many hundreds of pics of twigs and branches.

Has a bird given you similar trouble.

Max.

[Cristian Mihai]

Agree with you - Firecrest and Goldcrest...

[JohnJos]

Kingfisher

[SteveClifton]

Lesser Pecker and Hawfinch-more because of scarcity than anything else! (at least in the UK anyway).

[Donalda]

Hi Senatore, for me here in Thailand it's a little one called "Ashy Throated Warbler", never stays in one place more than a couple of seconds, and even then it's continualy twitching, so frustrating.

[GYRob]

i think i will go a with KF although i have some shot's iv never quite got the one i want iv had one close to me but was shooting into the sun another time it was close but the light was bad .
But one day it will happen :)
Rob.

[Corvus Corax]

I find waders are a problem due simply to the distances generally involved - it's tough to get a really good shooting position for high tide work.

[Claymore]

Victoria Beckham! had her in my sight a few times but moves at last minute and don't like to waste bullets. LoL
The Jackal
Ps sorry only joking, hardest has got to be Swallow when flying
Brian

[Chalky]

Got to be the Goldcrest, the little blighters are in next doors fir tree every day, until I appear with the camera and then they fly over the road into the farm yard conifers.

Tom

[bobwoodcock]

Fan tailed warbler for me,it took 5 outings and 17 hours of waiting to get a half decent shot.

[paul goode]

Swift.

[luke]

Crossbills i have been struggling with recently, everyone i have got reasonably close to has either been back lit or theres branches in the way!

[NoSpringChicken]

I digiscope so the simple answer is 'most of them'. However anything flying is impossible and small flitty birds are very difficult. Ducks, geese and waders are not normally too bad as they are big and don't tend to move too much. However I have had some real problems with then when they are feeding and I end up with loads of shots of headless birds.

Ron

[bobwoodcock]

I digiscope so the simple answer is 'most of them'. However anything flying is impossible and small flitty birds are very difficult. Ducks, geese and waders are not normally too bad as they are big and don't tend to move too much. However I have had some real problems with then when they are feeding and I end up with loads of shots of headless birds.

Ron

I know what you mean about flying birds and digiscoping Ron,impossible to get a decent shot really,just remembered crawling 100 yards through thorns and sheep droppings last summer to get a shot of a Stone curlew as well,really hard and they are so well "cammed up" in the dried grass.

[Lee J]

I see your perseverence paid off Max. Nice pic's, better than my effort the other week (see below).

Although the Firecrests were giving me the run around, id still have to agree with Paul. Ive tried for swift a few times. Put in a few hours last summer at Marsh Lane, when there was'nt much else about, and they were low to the water, but not much luck.

The only tip i can give you with swifts is dont bother, its a waste of time ;) Unless your realy bored that is.

Saying that there are some people out there with fantastic pic's of various swift species. The question is was it a lucky shot or are they just far better than me?? Im going for the latter.

127221

[JohnZ]

Most of them again !

[Adey Baker]

Goldcrests can be quite easily approachable when they're feeding actively so you can stay with them as they move around and eventually they'll present you with a decent photo opportunity. If you don't get them one day, you can always go back again on another occasion.

Firecrests don't usually give you that option in this country, though the Alvecote ones seem to be staying where they are, hence somebody will eventually get a good shot by the law of averages.

I've only been to see them once (last Monday) so I don't 'deserve' to get a better shot than others who've worked at them for some time and I didn't get much at all - the attached, heavily-cropped, 'record' shot was the best I could manage! I thought they were slightly more wary than the average Goldcrest, so getting close enough for a reasonable-sized image was the most difficult aspect.

On a slightly different tack, Great Tits are difficult to get good photographs - not because they're unapproachable but that glossy black cap next to the pure white cheeks makes the exposure difficult to get spot on - even then you need to do a bit of work on them in Photoshop afterwards.

[rezMole]

Firecrests don't usually give you that option in this country, though the Alvecote ones seem to be staying where they are, hence somebody will eventually get a good shot by the law of averages.


Luckily I've had Firecrest in my garden for the past three months, so have managed some decent shots - after a lot of hard work!

On a slightly different tack, Great Tits are difficult to get good photographs - not because they're unapproachable but that glossy black cap next to the pure white cheeks makes the exposure difficult to get spot on - even then you need to do a bit of work on them in Photoshop afterwards.

I have had this problem with Coots! Took me ages to get one where the bill looks OK and there is still some detail in the black feathers.

[Tannin]

Swifts, of course.

Some duck species, pygmy-geese as an example, which seem to confuse AF systems because of their plumage.

Anything with jet-black plumage because the exposure is so tricky, more so if, like a White-winged Chough, it has pure white as well as black.

Fairy-wrens: so fast, so small, so brilliantly coloured. You need to stop right down to get decent depth of field (as you have to be so close with such a tiny bird), and you need your lens wide open to get very high shutter speeds as they move so fast. You need to crank the ISO way up to get good shutter speeds, and you need to wind the ISO right back because you can never fill the frame and you'll have to crop a lot. You need to shoot in JPG to keep your frame rate up (lots of duds with these hyperactive birds), and you need to shoot in raw because the exposure is so tricky. How can something so common and so visible be so difficult? Even when you do catch a beauty, people look at it and say 'it's only a wren, I see them all the time in my garden", as if it was easy.

Many others, but that will do for now.

[senatore]

Two others I've just thought of which should be easy because they are pretty common but I cannot get near them to get a decent shot.They are Jays and Green Woodpeckers which both have the ability to detect my presence at 100 metres and then fly off to the next county.

Max.

[Marcus Conway - ebirder]

Golden Eagle

[tjsimonsen]

Anything flying! Mainly because I cannot seem to get a grip on BIFs.

Apart from that: Cickadees, Nuthatchers, Tree-creeper and .... Magpies! Everytime I take out the camera the Magpies are gone! The others are just to lively and energetic.

Thomas

[Hanno]

Here in Vietnam:

All Babblers, Pittas, most Warblers, Flowerpeckers, Sunbirds, and on, and on:-(((

[dafi]

I find the active and constantly moving ones Like Sanderling and Wagtails a pain. No sooner do you have the scope focused on them and in the camera screen than they are off. While i am left kneeling trying to do three things with two hands. Some times i stick a dozen sticks in the beach. Then focus sticks and just let the birds walk in to shot.

[HokkaidoStu]

Took me ages to get a decent Long tailed Tit shot, they seem to be even more active than Goldcrests. I've never managed a Treecreeper 'keeper' either (shuffling around on tree trunks in dark forests) and Harlequin Ducks (colours confuse my camera) and Night Herons (usually overexposed when they're in the open and hiding behind branches/twigs/reeds when they're not).

[gordon g]

Some are just tricky because they are hard to spot - goldcrests are one I always struggle with round my way. Others, like coots and magpies are because of exposure problems, though I did finally get a reasonable shot of a coot recently.
The thing I find hardest is getting something more than a portrait of the bird - those stand-out images where light, pose and composition all come together for you, regardless of species. They are still too much a chance occurence for me - I've probably only got single figures of these!

[rogerscoth]

For me it is most warblers and similar small birds that feed very frantically.
I managed a few shots of Blackpoll Warblers on the Isles of Scilly last October, but they quickly hid in the shade too often. The shots of them in the sunshine were frontal shots, and the side-on shots always had some shadows or foliage on them, as in these examples :-

Roger

[Larry Lade]

I am a little surprised that no one mentioned the Winter Wren, Troglodytes troglodytes. Over here in the USA they never seem to stay in one spot for more than an instant. They pop into view and then they are into a nearby root wad or some thick vegetation and out of sight!

[Macswede]

Firecrests are pretty rare in Sweden and around Stockholm virtually non-existent so that's not a problem for me. :-)
The local wood is full of Goldcrests though and they have become something of an obsession. I know the easiest way to get good pictures of Goldcrests in Sweden is to photograph resting Goldcrests in the Stockholm archipelago in spring or autumn and that's certainly an ambition of mine, hopefully one I'll be able to fulfill this spring. Capturing them in action is more of a challenge though and might produce more interesting results.
As I see it there are 3 main problems. Firstly its fairly dark in the wood even on a sunny day so the answer is to pick a very bright day or use flash.
Which brings me to the second problem - exposure. I normally use partial metering on the 400D but Goldcrests move from light to shadow so rapidly that there isn't time to use exposure compensation so I'm thinking of trying evaluative metering on Goldcrests as I read somewhere that evaluative metering in Canons is coupled to a single focus point if the camera is set to a single point.
The third problem is slow focusing on fast birds and the answer might be to upgrade my camera to a 40D but that's not an option at the moment. So until then I think the best thing to do is, as Max put it, to knacker myself following them around (it's good exercise) and to take lots of shots with the camera set to continuous shooting (something that isn't possible with flash).

[K-Lex]

African Hobby

[fthsm]

Definitely Whipbird. You can get very very close but it is generally impossible to see.

[stevo]

Redshank & Oystercatcher just can`t seem to get close enough to them,very nervous birds.


Steve.

[Larry Lade]

1a. How many of you have photographed a BLACK RAIL?
1b. How many would like to photograph a Black Rail?

2a. (How many of you have seen a Black Rail?)
2b. (How many of you would like to see a Black Rail?)

3a. (How many of you have heard a Black Rail?)
3b. (How many of you would like to hear a Black Rail?)

* How many of you think that this is a mythical bird!

[Clive Watson]

Just wanted to resurrect this thread because I think I've finally figured out what my answer might be :

In a European context only (as that's all I have any real experience of)

1) Golden Oriole - is there a more elusive bird?

or

2) Water Pipit - is there a more easily flushed bird?

[Hotspur]

Alhtough im not a photographer, id have to disagree with Water Pipit, ive managed to get close to a couple of individuals this winter that were very showy and in good light.

[Clive Watson]

Oh yes? Where the hell were they?

[Hotspur]

Catterton North Yorks, able to get within 15 feet using a hedge as cover and watched it feed in the grass for 20 minutes or so. At one staged spooked nearer to me. Also Donna Nook, where one landed in front of me (about 20m) and was continually flushed along the edge of the salt marsh. Would let us approach within photographable distance before flying.

[kittykat23uk]

Cettis warbler! Since you can never see the blooming things at the best of times. Failing that, anything else that I haven't yet got a photo of.

[nikovich]

Northern Goshawk or Gyrfalcon . Never in the right place at the right time !