February 2003. One of my best months regarding bird photography. Although winter isn´t the best time in Austria for bird photography I took some of my best pictures of birds ever. What happened? First: I discovered a great place to shoot closeups of songbirds and second: I bought a used AF-S 2.8/300 ED.

The most important thing in bird photography is being close and the most difficult thing in bird photography is getting close! No matter what kind of lens you use, if you want to shoot birds you have to get really close. As birds ( and especially songbirds ) are very small you have to be within their fearcirlce to get a good picture. To get there is tricky most of the time. Best chance is to set up a feeding station in autumn to get the birds used to it. That´s what a retired guy did in a big park in Vienna. A passionate bird photographer that vitited his place 4 to 5 times a week. I shoot right beside him with my 300mm lens on my tripod. Most of the time without converter! We were about 3-4 meters away from the branch ( which worked as a feeder ). We didn´t use a hide. Sometimes a bluetit, nuthatch or woodpecker landed on a tree right beside me - to close to take a picture with my telelens. It was really a great experience. I stood there for more than two hours. On my way to the car I realized that I got nearly frozen. I visited this place three times in February and got great results each day. I got a lot of closeups of small birds but my favourite shot was the image above. On his way to the feeding station this blackbird landed on a tree behind. He only stayed for a couple of seconds but thanks to the hyperfast AF of my new lens I was able to get the shot. More bird shots can be found in my bird - folder. birds

Settings: Manual-mode, Spot-metering, 1/350s/f2.8, WB cloudy -3, NEF.