This chapter focuses on the reproductive life cycle of birds, from courtship to rearing of the young. Some of the most impressive bird behaviour can be found in the elaborate ways in which birds seek to attract a partner with which to pass on their genes to the next generation.
Nearly all birds build nests, of course, and it was this central part of a bird’s life that drew the first ever bird photographers. With their primitive equipment and short lenses, they were never going to succeed by chasing birds around to try and get a picture, but the nest could guarantee the presence of a bird. This required the building and positioning of hides to conceal the photographer. Nesting birds are very vulnerable, so it was essential that the photographer did not disturb the birds as they went about the business of bringing up a family. Not disturbing birds, particularly while nesting, remains paramount today. Many rarer species are specifically protected from disturbance at the nest – photographing them at or indeed near the nest requires permits, and these are not lightly given. Photographing some species near the nest is still a great way to take interesting pictures, because a great deal of activity takes place close by this key structure in a bird’s life.
GREAT BUSTARD
(Otis tarda)
Canon EOS 1D Mark II, 500mm f4 lens + 1.4x converter, resting on hide wall (see text), 1/125th sec @ f5.6, digital ISO 400
Extremadura, Spain
ATTRACTING A MATE
The first step in the reproductive cycle is to find a mate. It usually falls to the male bird to make himself attractive, for in most species it is the female that does the choosing.
It is the behaviour of the males in some species that is of most interest to us here, and the lengths that some species will go to in order to attract a mate are simply extraordinary, making for some of the most interesting bird images you will ever take. The male Great Bustard strolls around the rocky hillsides in the Extremadura region of Spain in small groups at the start of spring. Groups of males will display seemingly at random, either to each other or especially if a female appears nearby. In the display itself the male seems to almost turn himself inside out as he stretches his neck back over his body while inflating an air pouch in his throat, then he turns his wings over to display the white secondary feathers. He can walk around a little while displaying, but usually just stands there holding the position for several minutes at a time if a female is around.
The display is a bit of a moveable feast and is not easy to photograph, because you can never be sure exactly where it will take place. In this particular location in Extremadura there are a number of stone hides built into a hillside where the birds most frequently display. These are small structures, and in order not to disturb the birds it is necessary to enter a hide before sunrise and not leave until sunset. This means that you are in the hide for around 15 hours, which is not the most comfortable way to pass the day. The stone hides don’t accommodate tripods well so I would use the ‘windows’ (simply holes in the stone walls) to rest the long lens on.
You can wait for many hours before a bird wanders by close enough for a picture, but on this particular morning a male (opposite) started to display very early. This was nice to see, but it was still rather dark for photography and an exposure of only 1/125th of a second was the best I could manage. Thankfully technology came to my rescue and in these circumstances I was very glad I was using an image stabilized lens, particularly as I couldn’t even use a tripod.
The Great Bustard has a pretty static display, but I guess that this is to be expected for such a heavy bird. Some birds, though, are very active in their attempts to attract a female and the Little Bustard, found in the same region of Spain, is a good example of this. The clue to the manner of the display is in the name, for the Little Bustard is much smaller than its cousin. Its habitat is also slightly different – it prefers lush meadows to the rather arid steppes that the Great Bustard favours.
The problem with the Little Bustard’s habitat is that the plants are much taller, making it very difficult to see the bird. This is a real plus-point for the male bustard when he is hiding from potential predators, but a bit of a drawback when he is trying to let any females in the area know that he is available. The solution to this dilemma is remarkably simple – the male bird simply jumps up into the air, so that any female in the vicinity will see where he is. Just in case any of his potential partners are looking the other way when he does his display jump he also lets out a call, rather like blowing a raspberry, to attract their attention.
The Little Bustard is a very nervous species, which makes photographing the display quite a challenge. The actual display jump can occur anywhere within the male's territory, so you are never sure where he is going to appear. We’d set up a canvas hide a few days previously and made sure that the bird accepted it as part of his landscape before using it. I entered the hide before dawn to avoid any disturbance and waited. In the half light I could hear him calling, and as the sun rose I finally saw him among the vegetation. As it got brighter he began to display and would pop up, making a small arc, before disappearing again a metre or so from where he started. To get a decent-sized image I used a 2x converter on my 500mm lens, so given the 1.3x magnification of the camera body I was effectively using a 1,300mm lens. I decided to use manual focus, as autofocus is incredibly slow at f8 and the bird only appeared for a second or two at a time.
LITTLE BUSTARD
(Otis tetrax)
Canon EOS 1D Mark II, 500mm f4 lens + 2x converter, tripod, 1/1,250th sec @ f8, digital ISO 400
Extremadura, Spain
COURTSHIP DISPLAY
Albatrosses perform some of the most enchanting courtship displays in the entire world of birds, and make wonderful subjects for your camera. They are very large birds and, like most seabirds that nest on remote islands, are tolerant of humans and will often ignore you altogether. The pair bond is very strong with these birds – they often mate for life. They continually strengthen the bond with their displays throughout the breeding season.
We spent a week on Midway Island, a small dot in the very middle of the Pacific Ocean halfway between Japan and the USA. Midway is of course most famous for the Second World War battle that took place in the vicinity between these two nations. Nowadays, although it’s still covered in crumbling concrete buildings, it is home to thousands of seabirds, including the Black-footed Albatross. The display takes a few minutes to complete and consists of many phases, all accompanied by soft braying calls. The grand finale occurs when the two birds stand on tiptoe, push their chests together and cross their bills as shown below. It’s simply amazing.
We saw the displays regularly, but they were not easy to photograph because the density of albatrosses on the available land was high, and it was very difficult to isolate a pair and get a clean background. This is a common problem when visiting large breeding colonies. I find that the best approach is to work at the very edge of the colony, where bird density is at its lowest. Of course, a low density of birds also resulted in fewer displays. We waited many hours before this pair finally performed in front of us and I got the clear background that was so essential to the success of the shot. To maximize the clear space around and particularly behind the birds, I had to frame them very tightly. I also stood as tall as I could to exclude another pair of birds that would have appeared in the very top of the picture had I been at a lower angle.
BLACK-FOOTED
ALBATROSSES
(Diomedea nigripes)
Canon EOS 1V, 100–400mm f5.6 lens, approx 1/500th sec @ f5.6, Fuji Provia 100
Midway Island
FOOD PASS
A food pass like the one shown on the right can take place at two stages during the breeding season. The first is during courtship when the male is trying to convince the female that he will make a good provider should she accept him as a mate. The second is when the female is either on eggs or has very small chicks. At this stage female birds of many species spend most of their time at the nest and the males bring food. Sometimes the male will take it straight to the nest, but often he will wait around outside on a nearby branch until the female comes out.
COMMON
KESTRELS
(Falco tinnunculus)
Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II, 500mm f4 lens, tripod, 1/250th sec @ f4, digital ISO 400
Hungary
BLACK GUILLEMOTS
(Cepphus grille)
Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II, 400mm f4 lens + 1.4x converter, handheld, 1/500 sec @ f11, digital ISO 400
Shetland Isles, UK
I was in a very luxurious wooden tower hide, six metres or so up in the air on a rather muggy afternoon, and the temperature in the hide was over 32°C (unfortunately the luxury didn’t extend to air conditioning). After a couple of hours I was wilting, dark stormy clouds were gathering outside and the light levels plummeted.
It was at this moment that the male kestrel arrived with a vole and landed on a nearby tree. He called the female a few times and she responded, and after a few minutes came out onto a bare branch. He then flew down to join her and immediately gave her the vole, which she took straight back to the nest. It was all over in a fraction of a second. The food pass took place a little too close to the hide for my liking, so the resulting picture is very tightly cropped, but I think it still works. The low light levels were reflected in the relatively slow shutter speed of only 1/250th of a second. This resulted in the female being blurred as she moved to grab the vole. The male, though, is sharp because he stood very still as the female’s powerful bill came towards him. If the male had been blurred the picture would not have worked, but with the male sharp and the female’s blur clearly caused by her quick movement, I think that in this case this adds something to the overall feel of the image. I do have another shot of her with the vole in her mouth and both birds are sharp, but it lacks the drama that the female's movement brings to the shot.
Not all food passes are quite as gruesome as those of the raptors. Many seabirds feed on fish, which tends to result is rather less blood in your pictures. The pair of Black Guillemots pictured above were, I believe, in the early stages of courtship, and the male bird on the left was attempting to present his prize to his prospective mate. I think you will agree that this is a far more tranquil scene than the one depicted in the photograph of the kestrels on the preceding page.
I was on the small island of Mousa, just off the coast of mainland Shetland, and it was the Black Guillemots that I had come to photograph. Unlike many of the other auk species they do not nest in large colonies, but in small groups scattered around remote cliffs.
On first reaching the islands there was no sign of my target birds, but as is usual with successful bird photography a combination of perseverance and patience paid off and eventually a single bird landed on the edge of a low cliff. I approached the bird very slowly and got close enough for a few portraits. After a while a few more birds flew in to join it. One of them had a fish in its bill, so naturally this was the one I concentrated my attention on. It didn’t eat the fish as I had expected, but was joined by a second bird that I assumed was its mate or at least potential mate.
The first bird tried several times to present the fish to the other one, but it was consistently rejected. In the end the first bird sat down with the fish in its bill and after a while decided to eat it. So even when the food pass fails it can still make for some interesting pictures.
Unlike the kestrel picture, this photograph was taken on a bright, sunny day. This allowed me to stop down to f11 to ensure that both birds were sharp, while retaining a sufficiently high shutter speed to ensure that there was no camera shake.
MATING
After all the wonders of finding a partner and the rituals of courtship, we now come down to the nitty gritty as it’s time to mate. This comes as a bit of an anticlimax (no pun intended) as in most bird species it all seems to be over very quickly indeed. The sex act puts both birds in a rather vulnerable position, and I would imagine they are quite distracted at the time and might not notice a predator approaching. This is almost certainly why the actual copulation doesn’t last very long.
Mating often takes place at or near the nest, as was the case with the two European Rollers, which were photographed on a perch provided for them by the nest box they were using at the side of an old track deep in the Hungarian countryside.
Rollers are late breeders, and even in late May this pair was still in the early stages, with the male bringing food for the female. She was obviously impressed with this particular bug that he presented her with, because no sooner had she taken it from him than she arched herself forwards inviting him to mate. He needed no further encouragement and hopped up on her back. The mating actually took a minute or so, which gave me enough time to take quite a few shots. You’ll notice that she is still holding the insect in her bill during the mating.
There are a number of factors that contribute to the success of this image, not least being the softly coloured, out-of-focus background. Shooting at f4 certainly helped with the background, but because the perch for the birds was high and the hide was positioned very slightly higher there was no sky in the background. The background that was visible was quite distant, and this provides the softness to the picture.
EUROPEAN
ROLLERS
(Coracias garrulus)
Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II, 500mm f4 lens, tripod, 1/1,000th sec @ f4, digital ISO 400
Hungary
The birds are well positioned within the frame – although their heads are in the centre, the birds are clearly to one side with most of the empty space in front of them. The most important element, however, was the timing of the shot. The male had to raise his wings briefly to balance himself on the female’s back. This happened just the once and only for a second or two, but capturing that moment really added impact to the picture.
Not all couplings are as graceful as the rollers’ was, and particularly among ducks they can be a bit rough and ready. In early spring groups of male Mallards roam around large lakes looking for a lone female. If they find one they pursue her as a pack and all try and mate with her at the same time, often pushing her completely under the water in what looks like a rather frightening ordeal.
The male Goldeneye does not hang around in gangs, but as can be seen in the picture opposite he can get quite rough with his mate as he prepares to mount her. Gripping her head firmly in his bill, he twists her around, then gets on top of her to mate. This doesn’t take long, which is just as well because I’ve seen the female bird completely under the water during mating.
This picture was taken at Pensthorpe Waterfowl Park in Norfolk and the birds are not wild, but part of a collection of waterfowl from around the world. Some people frown on the practice of taking pictures of birds that are not wild, but I find that places like Pensthorpe are ideal for observing and photographing behaviour that would be very difficult to see in the wild. The other plus point, of course, is that these collection birds are very tame and used to people, so by photographing them there is no risk of disturbance at all and no hides are needed. If you want you can even feed them by hand. As mentioned before, such large concentrations of captive birds also attract many wild ducks, which quickly become habituated to people.
When photographing birds that have a sheen in their feathers, such as the male Goldeneye, it is very difficult to capture that sheen in the picture. Unless the light is hitting it just right any colour will be lost. In this image I have been only partially successful, because although some of the green colour on the head of the male bird can be clearly seen, the central area is not as well lit as I would have liked and is rather dark. When photographing birds, particularly when they are on a lake such as this, you have little control over the angle at which you shoot. In this case, I think the interesting behaviour that has been captured in the image overcomes the slightly disappointing lack of sheen, and the image still works.
GOLDENEYES
(Bucephela clangula)
Canon EOS 1V, 600mm f4 lens, tripod, 1/1,000th sec @ f4, Fuji Provia 100
Norfolk, UK
RED-THROATED DIVER
(Gavia stellata)
Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II, 400mm f4 lens + 1.4x converter, tripod, 1/500th sec @ f5.6, digital ISO 400
Finland
ON THE NEST
Birds do spend a lot of time simply sitting tight on the nest, keeping either eggs or young warm and safe from the attentions of predators. This is not the most exciting time from the photographer’s point of view, because there are often long periods of inaction while a bird sits tight. Birds sitting on the nest are not my favourite subject, but I really like the image (shown on the left) of a Red-throated Diver sitting on its nest on a small lake in Finland.
A semi-permanent hide was set up at some distance from the nest itself in front of some open water to enable photography of the adults and young. Although the hide was in place before the birds arrived to set up home, it was not to be used until the eggs hatched – if disturbed when on their eggs, the adults would fly off and leave the eggs vulnerable to predation by the Hooded Crows that were in the area. When one of the parents returned and settled down on the nest it was barely visible from my position in the hide and would not have made a good picture. The other adult was off fishing to provide food for the chicks, and when it returned it flew around the lake a couple of times calling. In response to the call, the bird on the nest raised its head and I got the shot.
This is one of those images that works, but you just can’t figure out exactly why. The bird is not only quite small in the frame, but also smack in the middle, which usually doesn’t work. Here, however, it seems fine (at least to my eyes – others may disagree). I think the key to this picture is the ‘peephole’ effect of the gap in the reeds with the diver in the middle. It was a very dull day; the resulting shadowless lighting adds to the scene, and the colours are rather subtle, also due to the dull conditions. On a bright, sunny day I don’t think this shot would have worked nearly as well.
OSPREY
(Pandion haliaetus)
Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II, 400mm f4 lens, tripod, 1/1,600th sec @ f8, digital ISO 400
Finland
Of course, nest shots don’t have to be static. When the young have hatched and grown a little, the parent birds often leave the nest for a short break, frequently settling on a perch nearby so that they can still keep an eye on the nest itself and return quickly should danger threaten. This can certainly liven up an otherwise rather quiet day at a nest site, and gives the opportunity for the photographer to make much more dynamic images.
I had been in a tower hide overlooking the Osprey nest pictured above since 5 a.m. and certainly for the first few hours there was little activity. The male was away fishing and the female was sitting tight on the nest with her two chicks. I was waiting for the male to return with some food because I thought that this would make for some great pictures, but there was still no sign of him. It wasn’t only me that was getting a little tired waiting for him, though – the female was also becoming increasingly restless on the nest. She would stand up and look around as if willing her partner to arrive, but in the end she got fed up and flew off the nest. She didn’t go far, just a few metres away to the top of an old dead pine tree close to the nest.
This was my opportunity and I watched her carefully, as I knew she would return to the nest at some point and that would be the shot I wanted. I can’t remember exactly how long she took before returning to the nest, but it seemed an age. One of the biggest problems when waiting for something to happen like this is that you need to be constantly alert, even when there appears to be nothing happening. Reach for a sandwich or a much-needed drink, and you could miss the shot you’ve waited for all day. When she took off from her perch I was ready for her and panned with her as she stretched open her wings and stretched her legs downwards to land. Finally, I could relax and eat that sandwich!
This Osprey nest was on a relatively low dead pine tree and had been used for many years. It was out in the open with the forest far behind, which gave an excellent uncluttered background to the bird. With the background so far away I could stop down to f8 to increase the depth of field without the background becoming intrusive. Due to the bright conditions and the paleness of the bird, I could still shoot at 1/1,600th of a second and give myself a better chance of getting all of the bird in focus using f8.
FEEDING THE YOUNG
Finding enough food to keep their young growing takes up most of the parents’ time once the chicks have hatched, and as the babies get bigger, so do their appetites. Small birds often provide a diet of insects and these small food items don’t last the chicks very long, so the adults are constantly back and forth to the nest. This provides the photographer with many opportunities to capture the adult holding the various food items at the nest. Predatory birds such as owls deliver larger items such as mice, rats and small birds, and these last the chicks much longer than the food provided by smaller birds for their young. Visits to the nest by the adults are thus far less frequent and much more of a challenge to photograph.
While in Finland we came across the nest of an Ural Owl that was in an old dead pine tree trunk, 3–4 metres high, located in a clearing with extensive forest around it. We set to work to construct a tower hide so that I could photograph the nest from slightly above. This would enable the forest, rather than clear sky, to be used as a backdrop. The female hung around the clearing watching the tower hide go up and took pretty much no notice of all the activity in front of her precious nest. The tower was constructed first, then gradually moved closer, and finally the canvas hide was put on top.
The weather was very warm, and it was only in the morning and evening that the birds would bring food to the nest. The hide was set up with the light behind it in the morning. I spent a total of 14 hours in that little hide, perched up on the tower overlooking the nest tree, and during that time the female only came with food twice. The first time I missed out completely because she flew straight into the open top of the tree and out of the bottom (where the nest was). The whole thing was over in the blink of an eye, and before I realized what was happening she was gone – sitting in a nearby tree, job done.
If she was going to continue to fly into the top of the tree I would never get the shot, but I resolved to give it one more try. The male called from the forest and she flew off to meet him. We never saw him, but he was the one doing the hunting, deep in the forest. When he caught some food he would call to the female. She would then disappear into the trees and collect the vole or whatever the male had caught, and bring it back to the nest to feed the chicks.
This time I saw her fly out of the forest and sit in a nearby tree with a small rodent firmly in her bill. I focused my camera on the hole at the top of the nest tree and waited with my finger on the button. Owls fly silently, so there was no warning as she landed on the nest tree. Her head went straight into the hole, but my finger was now on autopilot and pressed the shutter. She stopped for just a second and looked straight at me, and I got the shot you see on the right. Obviously with her amazing hearing she had heard the shutter fire, which is why she looked around, and it was this that gave me the opportunity I had been waiting for.
Fourteeen hours in a small hide for around five seconds of photography is not my idea of fun, but in the forests of Finland where birds are at such a low density, capturing the bird at its nest is the only way to photograph this beautiful owl.
URAL OWL
(Strix uralensis)
Canon EOS 1D Mark II, 500mm lens, tripod, 1/2,000th second @ f5.6, digital ISO 400
Finland
RED-THROATED DIVERS (Gavia stellata)
Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II, 400mm f4 lens + 1.4x converter, tripod, 1/500th sec @ f11, digital ISO 400
Finland
When birds such as owls feed their young it happens in the nest itself, beyond the reach of the photographer’s camera. Many waterbirds, however, feed their young away from the nest in open water, and the Red-throated Diver is one of these. I took the above shot at the nest site where I photographed the adult on the nest shown earlier in this chapter. The chicks were still very small (only a few days old) and one of the adults spent most of the time with them on the pond, because I guess they were still quite vulnerable at this age.
The other adult had been away for a couple of hours, but finally returned carrying quite a large fish in its mouth. The fish was in fact almost the same size as the chick, and I assumed that the adult was going to tear it up into smaller portions to feed it to the two chicks. Much to my surprise, when a young chick swam over the adult bird simply shoved the fish whole into its tiny gape. Amazingly, the little chick managed to turn the fish around to a head-first position, then swallow it whole. The adult swam around for a little while before taking off again, presumably to get a similar prize for its other chick.
As the birds were not that close to the hide when the adult fed the chick, I placed them in the bottom half of the frame. This left the reeds as a background and not too much featureless, out-of-focus water in the foreground, which would have been the case had I simply used centre spot focusing. It was a bright, sunny day, and I was able to stop down to f11 to give a greater depth of field and still retain sufficient shutter speed to stop any movement.
TAKING THE FAMILY PORTRAIT
Family portraits showing mum, dad and offspring are always popular, especially if they capture a sense of caring from the parents. In the case of species that have nests hidden away in vegetation such shots are often very difficult to achieve, but in the icy wastes of Antarctica in which penguins are found this was never going to be an issue. Visiting a penguin rookery can be a daunting experience, as you can be overwhelmed with birds. The picture opposite was taken at the very edge of the colony, where there were fewer birds to get in the way. That may sound easy, but I spent a lot of time searching out such situations and then waiting for something to happen.
EMPEROR
PENGUINS
(Aptenodytes forsteri)
Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II, 100–400mm lens, hand-held, 1/640th sec @ f16, digital ISO 400
Antarctica
EMPEROR
PENGUINS
(Aptenodytes forsteri)
Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II, 100–400mm @ 135mm, hand-held, 1/500th sec @ f16, digital ISO 400
Antarctica
Getting to an Emperor Penguin colony is not the easiest journey in the world. You have to travel across the southern seas in an ice breaker (not the most stable of ships in rough seas), then crash through the ice to a suitable ‘parking’ spot. You then need a helicopter to fly you from the ship and land you on the sea ice. To avoid disturbing the penguin colony, the helicopters have to keep at least a mile away from the birds. This leaves you with a gentle mile-long or so stroll over the creaking sea ice in very cold conditions.
Given this rather arduous journey, I decided to travel light and took only two lenses with me: 100–400mm and 24–105mm zooms. Emperors are large birds and very tolerant of people, so big, heavy telephotos were not needed. Since I did not have a big lens, I also didn’t need to lug my tripod with me, so this was a double saving. Even in overcast conditions it was very bright, with the light bouncing back off the ice all around. Both lenses are image stabilized, which also helped to ensure that the pictures would come out sharp.
Emperor Penguins are very upright birds and shooting the family group in portrait mode was the obvious choice. This also narrowed the frame, so that any birds on either side of the pair were excluded. I spent some time with the single bird and chick. When the other parent arrived they first greeted each other, then both adults looked down at the youngster. This was the moment I had been waiting for, and a fine family portrait was the result.
When photographing on ice it is important to ensure that you allow for the exceptionally bright surroundings. If left to its own devices the camera’s meter would underexpose this scene, because it would attempt to turn the whole thing a nice 18 per cent grey. This is not what you want so you have to overexpose, making sure that your histogram is as far to the right as possible without going beyond it and blowing out the highlights.
JUST KIDS
Emperor Penguin chicks don’t have a nest as the eggs are famously reared on the feet of their parents. As they get older and bolder they wander around the colony and meet up with other chicks, forming small crèches all over the ice. It was one such crèche (shown left) that I came across while searching the colony for interesting images. The bird at the front flapped his wings up and down as the others looked on. It made the picture and looks as if the front chick is conducting the others. As I was dealing with quite a lot of birds I wanted to have as large a depth of field as possible, and because of the bright conditions I was able to stop down to f16 and still shoot at 1/500th of a second.
Once some birds’ offspring reach a ‘certain age’, they become more and more hungry and demanding. The Gentoo Penguin chicks (shown right) were the same size as the adults, although they still retained much of the soft, downy plumage. Several had come down to the shore, and although they didn’t enter the water, they hung around in small groups. When an adult arrived and started the long march to the colony, these chicks would run up to them begging for food. Although this rarely worked, the chicks wouldn’t take no for an answer and would constantly pester the adult birds. The adult pictured here had had enough and started running across the rocks to escape the renegade chicks’ attention. Once again, I used portrait mode for the shot because this best reflected the upright stance of the birds, and using the hand-held zoom lens gave me the freedom to follow the action easily and frame the birds accurately.
GENTOO PENGUINS
(Pygoscelis papua)
Canon EOS 1D Mark II, 100–400mm lens, hand-held, 1/800th sec @ f5.6, digital ISO 400
Antarctica