On my love for bird watching and photography

As an introvert child, I preferred to withdraw from games with class mates during playtime, and, without permission, would leave school premises. I discovered that I loved observing birds, so one day after winning a scratch lottery ticket, I bought binoculars so I could watch them from farther away. 


I grew up counting all the birds of prey and other flocks during migratory seasons, as birds passed nearby, linking Africa and Europe. Despite memory loss, I have very vivid recollections of many hours passed bird watching and following their courses, and I even had called the bird observation society to let them know of my observations, for their statistics.

I had also bought 2 books to help identifying each species, and for a time, had memorized all the ones that flew in my area. 

Back then, I had no camera, and as I grew up and moved back to Europe, I now live in an area that has fewer birds, and to see most, I'd need a car. So, I'm limited by my accessibility to remote locations, and my gear.

Indeed, my first camera zoom X24 with max 432mm focal length limited my range. I'd have to be rather close. The 6MP resolution meant I needed to be even much closer, or have a lot of noise or hazy sky around my subjects. 

Even my current Fuji camera with a X30 zoom and up to 720mm focal length limit me, though less so, especially with 10MP resolution, which help with better image quality. I still need to find those birds, shot before they fly away, and hope for the best. (these are focal lengths in 35mm equivalent) 

I have never been able to get a telephoto lens, which would greatly help. 

However, the places I go to most often are a local park where there are swans, ducks, pigeons, sparrows and black birds, and rarely anything else. 

The local forest I go to have a lot more variety of finches, robins, birds of prey, hoopoes, but I almost never can see them, as they hide and camouflage on trees, or fly so high up that my zoom only shows dots and a lot of blue sky or clouds. 

Recently, I went through my bird photos, and found out that most weren't good, but I hadn't been able to say so because when I had shot them, I was using a low resolution computer 19'' screen, and now with a 24'' widescreen high resolution screen, I can see all the imperfections. As a result, I want to challenge myself and reach places with more birds, and get better photos. 

I didn't even used to edit anything during my first years as a photographer, and only in the past few years that I have been doing so in small dosage. I'm learning to improve my editing skills, with the help of youtube tutorials. 

I'll share with you, on my next posts, some of the good photos with various birds, but hope to manage that challenge next spring and summer. In winter, it's much harder for me to go out on photo hikes and most birds are gone in hiding or migrated back to warmer shores.