PHOTOGRAPHING FROM A CAR OR A BOAT
A car makes a good mobile blind, and a boat takes you to the waterbirds.
Car (Jari)
A car is an excellent mobile blind, especially where the birds are few and far between and pitching a tent blind isn’t possible. Also when time is limited, like on photo trips abroad, a lot of photographs tend to be taken from a car. Many small birds aren’t afraid of a moving car, often allowing you to get surprisingly close to your subjects. Overall, smaller back roads are more rewarding than bigger and busier main roads. Remember that many countries have banned off-road driving.
I had a box made for my car that fits between the two front seats. It holds two cameras and two different-sized lenses. When I’m out driving, I always have my gear ready for action. Over the years I’ve come across a great many opportunities that I would have missed without my camera box. Plus, the gear is out of sight when it’s in the box.
Another option is to have your gear in a camera bag somewhere close to you so you can reach it without getting out of the car. Keeping the camera on the other seat is not a good option because if you need to brake abruptly, it would probably catapult off the seat and onto the floor.
If there are two photographers in the car, a good tactic is for one to drive and the other to sit in the backseat behind the driver. This way both photographers get a fair chance at fast-action situations. It doesn’t matter so much which side of the car the bird is on because both photographers can shoot from either side.
Beanbags are excellent for photographing from a car through an open window. You can read more about this in the chapter “Bird Photographer’s Tripods.” Sometimes I use camouflage netting to hide my face and movement, especially when photographing wary birds from a car.
When you are driving, keep your bird sounds ready. For example, in winter you may find a Gray Partridge feeding in deep snow by the road, and by briefly playing its call you can make it peek out of the snowpack. Sound luring should be used in moderation to avoid disturbing the birds.
Particularly in winter, when it’s very cold outside, keep the temperature inside the car as low as you can, otherwise the heat you’re letting out through the open window creates heat haze, which may cause blurry images.
The Eurasian Collared-Dove image was taken as I was coming home from getting my groceries one day. When I turned in to my front yard I spotted a backlit dove perching in a maple that still had its autumn-colored leaves and was daintily covered with fresh snow. Luckily I had my camera handy and was able to capture a nice early winter moment.
A car functions well as a blind. This photograph was taken during a two-hour stint photographing Glaucous Gulls on a harbor pier in Vardø, North Norway, in heavy snow.
Camera gear in a box that was designed for a car
The image of a Green Sandpiper sounding its alarm is the result of one midsummer tour in the neighboring woods. The bird had brought its chicks to the side of the road and was warning them of an approaching car. Seeing that the chicks were safe in the ditch by the road, I took a few quick frames of the Green Sandpiper parent before driving off.
One November, when winter had come early, I was out with a fellow photographer when we found a Gray Partridge flock foraging in a field. We had been photographing them from the car for about an hour, when suddenly they all took cover beneath the snow. Just a few seconds later a Northern Goshawk struck about 10 m (32.8 ft) out in front of us. I don’t know who was more dumbfounded, us or the Northern Goshawk, but some seconds later it took off clutching a Gray Partridge that was still alive. Our camera settings were all wrong, of course, because we had been photographing slowly moving, feeding birds, but luckily the Northern Goshawk was struggling with the weight of its prey and had to land to get a better hold. Now we were ready for the action. Something like this can be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
A Eurasian Collared-Dove in a maple on my front lawn (Streptopelia decaocto)
Nikon D3S, 500mm f/4.0, 1/1600 second, f/7.1, ISO 800, one-shot focus with a central focusing point, beanbag, car as a blind. Liminka, Finland, October 2010.
I was in Lithuania one spring on a photo trip and managed to drive to a great location in the middle of a wetland that had been flooded. Driving the mother of all off-road vehicles—the Land Rover Defender—I was able to follow the road, even though it was covered in half a yard of water, and access the flooded area. I spent a morning photographing Red-necked and Eared Grebes and Spotted Crakes. Spring was just around the corner, and the birds were in full courting mode, so sound luring them to within a good photographing distance was easy.
A Green Sandpiper sounding an alarm call by the side of a road (Tringa ochropus)
Canon EOS-1D Mark III, 500mm f/4.0, 1/200 second, f/7.0, ISO 800, one-shot focus with a central focusing point, beanbag, car as a blind. Lumijoki, Finland, June 2007.
A Gray Partridge caught by a Northern Goshawk (Perdix perdix, Accipiter gentilis)
Canon EOS-1D Mark II, 500mm f/4.0 plus 1.4x extender, 1/2500 second, f/6.3, ISO 1600, continuous focus with 45 focusing points, handheld camera, car as a blind. Liminka, Finland, November 2006.
A Spotted Crake photographed from a car (Porzana porzana)
Canon EOS-1D Mark II N, 500mm f/4.0, 1/2000 second, f/5, ISO 500, continuous focus with an extended central focusing point, beanbag, car as a blind. Lithuania, May 2006.
Boat (Markus)
A boat is great for bird photography. Many times it’s the only way to get close enough to birds that are out in the middle of a large body of water or on rivers that wind over rough terrain. The principles of photographing from cars apply to boats—birds are less bothered by a boat than by people moving openly on the shores. Birds are often used to fishing boats and seem to not be bothered by photographers, either.
I use a boat to photograph arctic geese and ducks during spring migration as they fly north along the Gulf of Finland. For years I tried photographing them from little skerries out in the open sea, but with poor results. The birds seem to avoid the skerries, and their migratory paths vary with changes in the weather. I was always either in the wrong place or out at the wrong time.
I started getting much better results when I began to photograph the migration from a boat. I live in Helsinki, right on the coast. On a good migration day, I check where the main migratory path is, which is somewhere out on the open sea outside Helsinki. I drive my boat there, kill the engine, and let it drift. The migrating birds are not unnerved by a little boat standing still in the sea, and the flocks often fly at close range right by the boat. When the migratory path seems to move and settle along a new route, I navigate closer to a new vantage point and wait again.
Photographing from a boat has some special characteristics. At sea the wind is rarely weak enough to allow a tripod to be used, so I mainly photograph handheld, which in a rough sea is very difficult, even if it’s still safe enough to be out there. For photographing from a boat, the ideal weather is after a couple of days of light breezes so that even the swells have calmed down.
Bigger boats and ships are steadier, making the use of a tripod possible, but normally vibration from the engines tends to make photography impossible. A monopod can be a viable option for photographing from a boat.
A migrating flock of Barnacle Geese, photographed from a boat on the open sea (Branta leucopsis)
Canon EOS-1D Mark II, 300mm f/2.8, 1/500 second, f/10.0, ISO 800, continuous focus with 45 focusing points, handheld camera. Porvoo, Finland, May 2007.