For many of us in northern latitudes, April is a great month for a spring tune-up so we can get ready for the bird migration season. Mid-May is usually when many migratory birds start passing through our area… so I try to get some in-field practice to give my skills a spring tune-up.

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Often I’ll photograph a few birds in our backyard pond which is right below our kitchen window. This helps with my shutter release timing. This really doesn’t count as any kind of serious practice… just me starting to get in the groove.

My schedule lately has been pretty tight so I decided to go out in my backyard for a few hours to see what local birds I could photograph.

To make my practice session a bit more challenging I decided to pick one spot in my backyard… position my short stool… and do all of my practice photography from that single location.

I also decided that whatever images that I was able to capture… regardless of the quality… would be used in an article. If not too many birds showed up… tough luck for me. As regular readers know… especially if they read my last article… I’m not shy about admitting when I’ve messed up.

Over the years, I’ve found that setting some tight parameters when doing a practice session really helps me focus. Working within specific limits heightens my awareness… and encourages me to work very quickly before the potential subject bird flies off.

I also decided that I wouldn’t bother trying to photograph stationary birds and would focus only on those in-flight… or taking off. This forced me to consider potential flight direction, and to add area in-front of the subject bird to allow for motion.

I used my M.Zuiko 150-600 mm f/5-6.3 IS zoom lens so I could maximize my reach in my backyard. The red-winged blackbird above was 25.8 metres (~85 feet) away from my shooting position.

As is my standard approach, I used a single, small auto-focus point for all of my photographs. Trying to get a single point on an active bird was very good practice for eye/hand coordination. Especially for some of my photographs that were captured with my lens fully extended to 600 mm (efov 1200 mm).

As would be expected when capturing images of birds-in-flight in a residential backyard there are numerous visual distractions that one must accept as part of the practice exercise.

I set my Pre-Shutter Frames and Frame Limiter both to 15, and used 60 frames-per-second. These settings provide me with 1/4 second of shutter release timing which is still acceptable for me.

I used soft eyes technique to help me detect the movements of small birds perched on the interior of my neighbour’s trees. Once detected, the challenge was to keep them in my viewfinder as they jumped from branch to branch.

I had a number of birds come in to our seed feeders. Most of the time they were single birds, but there were some occasions when multiple birds were flying in. This gave me the opportunity to practice ‘both eyes open’ technique so I could better time my shutter release to get two birds in some of my photographs.

Unfortunately the bird in the background isn’t in focus in the photograph above… but the image does help demonstrate some of the captures that are made possible when using ‘both eyes open’ technique.

Some of my usable images captured birds leaping into the air and before their wings began to open. Given my goals in the practice session I found these to be acceptable captures.

On a few occasions I was able to get 2 or 3 usable photographs from the same image run.

Given the tight shooting environment these weren’t expected… but certainly welcomed.

At one point I detected some movement with my peripheral vision… looked upward… and noticed a raptor circling overhead. I quickly switched to my C1 Custom Mode (i.e. Bird Detection AI with Pro Capture L) and was able to capture some images of the raptor at a distance to subject of 66.6 metre (~218.5 feet).

Making time for a spring tune-up to prepare for bird migration season is time well spent. Even if all you can do is go out in your own back yard… or in a public park in your local area.

My goal with a practice session is to build and enhance specific skills… not to get keeper images. If I happen to capture a few keeper images… its a bonus.

Technical Note

Photographs were captured handheld using camera gear as noted in the EXIF data. All images were created from RAW in post. Most of the images were captured using Pro Capture H with Pre-Shutter Frames and Frame Limiter both set to 15. A frame rate of 60 fps was used, along with a single, small auto-focus point. This is the 1523 article published on this website since its original inception in 2015.

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