Your Bird Photographing Days Will Creep Up on You

The mysterious and sudden urge to capture winged creatures on camera

Those are the birders on the left, and that’s you on the right, still pretending you’re not a birder. Photo by Jeff Hayward

One day, you’re out shooting gritty urban scenes in black and white. Then you wake up one morning and suddenly you’re wondering what breed of bird is squawking from your oak tree.

Don’t laugh. It happens to the best photographers, and it happens without warning. It’s like a switch flips in your head, and suddenly you point your camera at birds instead of models. You become an encyclopedia of avian knowledge, wowing people at dinner parties.

And let’s be honest. Getting good images of birds requires some of the skills learned on the street. Birds tend to be wary of the photographer, move quickly, and are unpredictable, just like many human subjects.

The lust for birding usually starts in the late 40s/early 50s stage of life, although it can happen to anyone at any time. You’ll find yourself selling off your slick 50mm f1.4 lenses to get yourself a 600mm f4.5 workhorse to not disturb the cardinals while capturing their essence.

For me, it probably happened not long after I became a dad 11 years ago. I figured I might as well make the leap to adulthood and birding around the same time. However, I didn’t sell my nifty fifty in the process.