For sometime now I've enjoyed viewing all the wonderful and exciting bird photographs on this web site. Not having any bird photographers in my area to guide me in the right direction, I set out trying to get some bird photographs and made all the mistakes possible along the way.

My first camera purchase was the Canon Elan II with a 28-80mm zoom. I had some images of birds, but they were lost somewhere in the image. I figured out right away that this was not going to work. Sometime later I purchased a Sigma 70-300mm zoom lens, thinking this would really do the trick. I headed for the wildlife refuge and soon found out that even with this lens I still wasn't getting the images I desired.

Later when Canon introduced the EOS 10D, I knew I had to have one of these because I could still use my lens collection. When it arrived and I no longer had to wait on slides, I could just sit down at my computer and take a look at the images. However, this also brought new problems to light. What did I know about post processing digital images? I had to learn how to use Photoshop, because my old software just handed me a standard image that I basically had to live with.

After getting the 10D and becoming familiar with it, I wanted a larger lens as I felt that it would solve all my problems with bird photography. So sometime later I purchased a Sigma 50-500mm APO zoom. Isn't it funny how acquiring an item creates another problem you hadn't even thought of yet? This new lens required the purchase of a new stronger tripod and several other items needed to use it correctly.

Slowly, by accident, I began to acquire a few bird images that sort of looked OK. Most of these where large wading birds and a few flying geese. I was still trying for some smaller bird. I was not having much luck because they were in such heavy cover and the images had too much clutter in the background. I'm thinking where and how do I get an image like I see on this web site?

Finally, about a month ago as I was taking my morning walk it hit me. Why not build something in my back yard where I could control as many of the variables as possible? What I needed first were some birds. There were always plenty of them around the feeders, so problem number one was already solved. Next, I needed an excellent background without any clutter or hot spots. I only had one decent evergreen tree, but I could see the next door neighbor's shop building through the gaps in my tree's foliage. This meant that I had to build a wooden frame and cover it with camouflage cloth to block out the building showing through the foliage. I placed this behind the tree and supported it against my chain link fence. Finally I had a background without any clutter or hot spots.

I purchased a 4x4 post and positioned it about four feet in front of the background tree. I placed the feeder on top of the post and nailed some limbs to the post and positioned them for the birds to perch on before they went to the feeder. I thought getting some good photos was going to be easy but I was wrong again. The first thing I learned was that even with all of this I learned that the camera was still to far away from the subject too get any really good detail. However, it was a step in the right direction because I had solved my background problems.

The next day I moved the feeder and perches to within fourteen feet of the camera position and much further in front of the background tree. I noticed that the background got even better in the images and the birds were beginning to get larger in the frame. The Flash X-tender was beginning to give me a better image and better feather detail. I'm thinking now I'm making a little progress, but I was wrong again.

The next morning all my progress came to an abrupt halt as the squirrels had figured that they could climb the 4x4 wooden post and raid the feeder at will. Until this point I had avoided problems with using squirrel proof feeders but this feeder setup provided them with free access to the goodies.

I decided to redesign the feeder support and used some left over aluminum tubing for the project. As you can see in the feeder support image, I also built a cone shaped baffle to keep the squirrels from climbing the support. I also had to find a better way to attach the perches, as they needed to be adjustable. Another trip to the hardware store produced a solution as I found some plastic flag holders brackets which I could attach to the support mast with "U" bolts. Once attached these brackets had an open socket where I could insert the perches and still be able to adjust them near the feeder. After assembly and checkout the entire assembly was painted a nice satin green color.

With all these corrections in place, I once again placed the feeder support in action. In just a few minutes the birds were back as though nothing had happened, but the squirrels were frustrated because they could no longer climb the pole and get around the baffle. So now I'm back in action and getting some greatly improved bird images.

I'll be the first to admit that I've still got a lot more to learn about bird photography, but I've made a few advances. It is nice to be able to get some vastly improved images while sitting out on the deck enjoying the spring weather and not having to leave the comforts of home. Now if I could only figure out how to get the wood ducks and the great blue herons to come to the feeder, I would really be in business.

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