YEARS VARY AND CIRCUMSTANCES CHANGE
Tap into the opportunities each year offers.
Each bird year is different, and many factors affect them. Weather causes essential changes from one year to another, but the food situation has the biggest effect on where and when birds move and where they settle. As an example, in some years rowan trees have very good berry crops. These years are ideal for photographing berry-eating birds. In some years the vole populations decline, so owls become very easy targets for photography. Seasoned bird photographers know how to use these different phenomena to their advantage.
With bird photography, you should strike when the iron is hot. Whenever a normally hard-to-photograph species is for some reason emerging in greater numbers, you should invest time and effort into photographing it. More time should be taken with less photographed species and special situations or actions related to them. Take as varied a selection of shots as possible with different focal lengths and angles, even of the same bird. You never know what type of images will be most useful. The future use of your image may rely on a small difference, such as if the bird is perching in just the right position or on just the right branch. You might also get the chance to photograph something that has rarely—if ever—been photographed before. The more time you spend with a subject, the better your photographs get.
Spring Floods and the First Open Waters
In latitudes where it snows, some winters are more spectacular than others. You should not miss the opportunity to concentrate on snow when you can, be it in your own country or somewhere else. A snow-related phenomenon to pay attention to is spring flooding, especially when spring is advancing fast after a snow-rich winter and floods hit flat fields and low estuaries and shores. These areas are favored by geese and swans. These floods are over in a couple of days, so you should carefully follow the situation; ideally, take your blind to the shooting site well in advance. During cold springs the waters open up slowly, giving photographers good opportunities to shoot a variety of species at close ranges. You can help waterbirds find the spot in front of your blind by placing grain on the ground for them to feed on.
A lightweight and low tarp blind on a flooded field in spring
The fields around Liminganlahti Bay in Oulu, Finland, offer good opportunities for photographing geese—like Graylag, Bean, Greater White-fronted, and Pink-footed—at close range. Lightweight tent blinds or other portable constructions with tarpaulin covers are the photographer’s choice in these fields because it is important to be able to move them easily. Barley scattered on the ground in front of the blind helps attract the birds closer, and in about a day or two the normally shy geese get used to the blind.
Graylag Geese and Bean Geese have arrived in spring, finding the first open patches of water (Anser anser, Anser fabalis)
Canon EOS-1D Mark III, 500mm f/4.0, 1/1000 second, f/9.0, ISO 400, Manfrotto 501 video head, ground pod, blind. Lumijoki, Finland, April 2008.
Vagrant Birds
In some autumns there can be a lot of vagrant birds. An especially successful breeding season causes the surplus birds to erupt out of their normal range in search of food, sometimes in great numbers. The best places to photograph them are capes, spits, islands, and ridges between the inland waterways. The tip of the Hanko Peninsula is one of Finland’s best-known spots for wandering birds. Typical vagrant species are the Long-tailed Tit and other tits, woodpeckers, jays, nutcrackers, and nuthatches.
A Northern Hawk Owl on autumn migration (Surnia ulula)
Canon EOS-1D Mark II, 300mm f/2.8, 1/1600 second, f/2.8, ISO 800, continuous focus with 45 focusing points, handheld camera. Helsinki, Finland, October 2005.
Bird photographers with an excellent opportunity to photograph berry-eating birds
Owls can also take to nomadic behavior as they search for new hunting grounds, and they can be out and about during daylight. A Northern Hawk Owl stayed for months in a park in Helsinki, offering great opportunities for photographing it (overleaf). The autumn foliage helps indicate that the owl is an autumn vagrant. And as always, autumn colors give your shots an elegant touch!
Berry-Eating Birds
The success of rowanberry crops makes a big difference in terms of how easy it is to photograph birds like waxwings, Pine Grosbeaks, and thrushes. Every few years the rowans yield very good crops, bringing an influx of berry-eating birds to the area, and this is when you should concentrate your photographic efforts on them. The birds start from the tops of the trees and gradually work their way down. You should be ready because by that time the birds, focused on eating, are quite fearless and are easily photographed. This is a good example of an opportunity not to be missed!
Much more rarely, maybe only once or twice in a decade, you get to photograph birds feeding on snow-covered berries. The action-packed foraging and eating, combined with the elements of berries and snow, offer you many chances at being creative in your photography. Don’t forget that light reflects off snow and hits the birds from a low angle; this is a nice element in your images, especially in flight shots.
When the rowans are doubling over with berries, you can harvest some and stock them in your freezer. You can use the frozen berries to attract berry-eating birds to your feeding stations. Many great images of berry-eating birds have been taken in simulated situations.
Bohemian Waxwing with snowy rowanberries (Bombycilla garrulus)
Canon EOS-1D Mark II N, 500mm f/4.0, 1/1000 second, f/8.0, ISO 400, one-shot focus with one focusing point, Manfrotto tripod, Manfrotto 501 video head. Liminka, Finland, November 2006.
Owl Years
Just as berry crops affect berry-eating birds, fluctuations in vole populations affect owl behavior and how easily they can be photographed. Vole populations fluctuate in roughly four-year cycles, and most owls breed during population rises or peaks. Years when the vole populations are on the rise are especially good because it helps the young owls fledge and find food throughout their first year. Peak years, on the other hand, can be difficult because the vole populations often decline during the breeding season or in the autumn, making survival through their first winter unlikely for the young owls.
So how do the vole populations affect the life of a bird photographer? Well, the cycles differ from one area to another, and keeping track of the vole population development in your locale helps you plan owl projects. A local raptor center will probably have information about the voles. You can also find information from forest research centers, which can often give estimates for a wider area.
When the owls are having a good breeding year, you have the opportunity to witness and document the entire breeding phase, with the males bringing food to the nestlings and, later, the dispersed owlets. Sometimes, with the necessary precautions and preparations, you can photograph breeding owls, but remember to make sure that your photographic actions do not cause the birds any harm! If you are at all unsure how to go about it, find out before trying on your own. You can turn to bird guides or other bird experts.
A Long-tailed Jaeger chick caught by a male Snowy Owl (Bubo scandiacus, Stercorarius longicaudus)
Canon EOS-1D Mark III, 500mm f/4.0, 1/1250 second, f/13.0, ISO 800, continuous focus with an extended central focusing point, Gitzo tripod, Manfrotto 501 video head, dome tent blind. Finnish Lapland, July 2007.
Nowadays extremely rare in Scandinavia and Finland, the Snowy Owl sometimes breeds in the region, depending on the lemming populations. For unknown reasons, lemmings have fluctuated in very uneven cycles, and peak years are few and far between, making the Snowy Owl a rare breeder in this part of the arctic range. Photographing breeding Snowy Owls requires a license from the authorities. In 2007 roughly 10 Snowy Owl pairs attempted breeding in the Finnish Lapland, and another 10 or so in Finnmark, northern Norway. Most of the nests perished due to a dramatic decline in the lemming populations at a crucial time in the breeding season. Some parents were able to adapt to the situation and started feeding their young with other birds. At least chicks of Common/Black Scoters, Wood Sandpipers, and Meadow Pipits plus their chicks, and adult Long-tailed Jaegers/Skuas ended up on the Snowy Owls’ menu!
A female Great Gray Owl, wild and free (Strix nebulosa)
Owls can be more readily photographed when the vole populations are low because you can feed breeding owls with dead rodents and even with pieces of meat or minced meat. Sometimes, in situations like these, female owls seem to become temporarily tame, which makes photographing them very easy, whereas the males and the chicks retain their innate shyness. The females return to their wild selves by the time the special circumstances are over.
Sometimes owls are forced to wander in the winter due to scarcity of food, and they can become active in the daytime. As they gravitate to open areas to hunt, they become easier to photograph. By spending a lot of time along the edge of a field you can get spectacular shots of owls hunting in authentic, unsimulated situations. Changes in the temperature and the weather conditions can at times cause the snowpack to become really hard, making it difficult or impossible for the owls to strike through to get their prey, or an owl can be close to starvation and have no energy left for hunting. Bird photographers can start feeding these owls with dead voles or mice. Many an owl has been helped through the winter, or even saved from starvation, and in exchange the photographer gets beautiful shots of owls flying low over snowy fields.
A starved female Great Gray Owl was fed in Tornio, northwest Finland, in the winter of 2008–2009 for several months, with dead rodents and pieces of pork heart. Dozens of photographers from all over the world had the chance to photograph it.
A Great Gray Owl hunting (Strix nebulosa)
Canon EOS-1D Mark III, 70–200mm f/2.8, 1/2000 second, 75mm, f/8.0, ISO 800, continuous focus with one focusing point, handheld camera. Tornio, Finland, March 2009.