Which birds do you find easy to photograph and which hard?

[senatore]

After you have located them which birds do you find easy to photograph and which ones do you find hard?

For me I find Stonechats easy to take a pic of once you have located them as they are not only happy to pose for you but will often relocate to give you a better shot.See a couple of recent pics below.

The hardest (impossible???) bird to get a pic for me is a Cettis Warbler.I have lost count of the number of times I have heard them close by but only had a quick glance.Hence no pic.

What birds do you find easy and which ones hard?

Max.

[Silvershark]

I'll go for blue tits, they seem to be very happy to come close for photo opportunities while going about their business! And there's loads of them so one is bound to come close enough.

Hardest treecreeper. They come close but they are so fast dashing up the trees and there always seems to be branches getting in the way.

[stevo]

I agree members of the Tit family are easy to photograph,the one I find hard to photograph(Don`t laugh everyone)is Great sptd woodpecker I can attract them to peanuts thats easy but as soon as the shutter fires they are gone like a shot,they will often sit up in a tree watching while other birds happily come within focal range.

Steve.

[Mickymouse]

Easiest has got to be Cormorants and Grey Herons because they sit about for ages and hardest, any of the little ones, Goldcrests in particular.

Mick

[Gingling]

Neat question:

For me the no problem critter is the sage sparrow. They pose well, have not yet learned to run from humans where I live. The hardest to photo around my place are the prarrie falcons.

When they do come into my yard they are usually going well over 80 miles an hour.
When they catch a meal it is allways in my marsh between trees, bull rushes and a very diverse and extreamly dense cover so once again there is no opportunity.

The most I can hope for is to capture a moment as they leave but even that is difficult as they keep the front porch where I sit and themselves separated from view with the trees and other cover of the tidal marsh.

The reason I find this a spiffy question is because the difficulty of photographing birds depends largely on the ecology of individual geographic areas. The prey , the hunters in the area, the cover involved , population numbers and such things.

The answers to this question supplied with a discription of each posters surroundings where they are or were photographing at , would be most helpfull in finding the best place to film a target species on a species spacific trek.

Thanks!

gingling

[senatore]

Robins also can be pretty easy.Jays are also hard for me as I seem to scare them off when I get anywhere near them.

Max.

[alan_rymer]

Easiest has got to be Cormorants and Grey Herons because they sit about for ages and hardest, any of the little ones, Goldcrests in particular.

Mick
Agree with Mick about the ease of digiscoping large waterbirds, and also with Senetore about the difficulty with Jays.

[Geoff Pain]

Waited by the Island Hide at Titchwell for an hour for a Cettis to show itself.It did for about 5secs and I managrd to get 1 shot.I find most small and highly mobile birds difficult to get shots off.

[JohnZ]

I too have problems with Jays. Been lucky a couple of times but not with shots that I would put on here.

[Mickymouse]

Jays are weird aren't they, it's not so much that they are hard to photograph it's just the results are never pleasing, I find Parakeets are like that too.

Mick

[Hanno]

Sometimes I feel that all birds here in Vietnam are hard. A lot of the birding is in rain forests, meaning bad light and lots of skulkers and flitters.

When too frustrated, I head to a Mangrove forest, where the Herons and Egrets are easy(ish). Lot of hunting here, so birds tend to be very flighty.

[rka]

Easy - Herons, waders generally

Hard - Tanagers in the rain forest. They just never stop moving.

Very hard - Hummingbirds in the wild (away from feeders)

[The Raptor]

I find that Blue Tits, Robins, Herons, Blackbirds & House Sparrows easy to photograph but struggle with many other birds which are far to many to mention. I do find that Redshanks are hard to get close to, I cannot get within 50 yards or more of them at the moment. I must add that Sparrowhawks in my garden have been so easy to photograph, have got within a few feet of them on occasions.

Rod.

[mike from ebbw]

since i bought my first dslr (two weeks ago)i find all birds hard to photograph.i swear the bloody thing is cursed!as soon as any birds see it they flee in all directions.i think i will take it back and start using my 1000fn again,lol.

[senatore]

since i bought my first dslr (two weeks ago)i find all birds hard to photograph.i swear the bloody thing is cursed!as soon as any birds see it they flee in all directions.i think i will take it back and start using my 1000fn again,lol.
Mike,
There is no doubt in my mind that birds can tell if there is a camera nearby.I think cameras give off vibrations that birds can sense and these vibrations increase dramatically when the camera is focussed on a them !!!!!

Do not give up you may get lucky.

Max.

[Mabel]

Easy: My wee Robin in the garden is so tame he gives excellent poses. Stonechats are also very obliging ,as are Brent Geese, Swans and Mallards or other tame park/pond birds.

Hard: Goldcrests move too fast, I find (similar to the hummers). Herons and Egrets are big, can also be quite nervy, I find.

[christineredgate]

Our local Yellow Wagtail.As soon as he hears /sees the cam he is off.

[Adey Baker]

Easiest: Nuthatch and Marsh Tit - they'll sell their souls for a handful of sunflower seeds!

Hardest: Quite a few, but at the moment I'm having difficulty with Ravens in flight (mainly because the light would be better in the afternoon at a particular location and I'm usually there only in the morning!)

[tjsimonsen]

Easiest: Gulls, herons, egrets. And in the right situation, seabirds (such as on a designated seabrid trip in a good area, like 15 miles east of Sydney).

Hardest: I suppose that any warbler in flight or Acrocephalus and Locustella warblers on fall migration in Europe would win easily here. But if I'm to limit my choice by what I have acctually tried to photograph: Swifts in flight or any skulking small passerine in dense undergrowth in a dark tropic forest.

/Thomas

[Leicaman]

At the moment Jays. I only have to raise the camera and they are gone.

[bobwoodcock]

The easiest for me this year was the Spotted flycatcher in my garden as he just sits on the wall looking in the house.
The most difficult was stalking a Stone curlew earlier in the year and last week it took over an hour to get a half decent shot of a Fan tailed warbler which as you probably know do not stay motionless for very long at all.

[gordon g]

Considering garden birds, most are fairly obliging, but the dunnocks in my garden are maddeningly hard to get a shot of - they are easy enough to see, but the insist on lurking in the darkest shadows they can find. Then when they do venture out, invariably I am focussing somewhere else!

[psilo]

The easiest bird to photograph here in bolton is the great crested grebe. No stalking required you just walk right up to the edge of the water and they happily fish about 15 feet away and totally ignore you.
Hardest bird? the greenwoodpecker. Would love a shot but there arent any around here! :(