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Shorebirds are among the most photogenic of birds. This marbled godwit balances on one leg, with its head tucked in, for a short nap. |
A lot of my stalking experience has been with shorebirds wintering along the coast of Southern California. Shorebirds are irresistible to me. No matter what species, and regardless of whether they're alone or in massive groups, they make excellent photographic subjects. The reason why is a little anthropomorphic—shorebirds have personality. Running back and forth with the waves, rummaging through seaside debris searching for food, or even just sitting in a group asleep with their heads tucked in and a leg pulled up, shorebirds are fascinating.
My favorite tactic for photographing shorebirds is to go out just before dawn in winter to a shorebird staging area, where the birds gather to fatten up before continuing on their long migrations. When I travel to the West Coast, I almost always visit my special shorebird spot a tiny sand spit protruding into a bay near where I used to live. Though the birds there are more suspicious than the shorebirds at public beaches, the variety of species and the numbers are better. I always take as much time as necessary and stalk carefully in order to get close enough to take the kind of pictures I'm after.
A typical stalk there usually goes something like this: It is almost light outside, but a damp, heavy mist makes visibility poor. You see the outlines of hundreds of shorebirds along the sand spit. A frosty chill makes you shudder deeply, but you do your best to keep still. Nothing you can do, though, masks the steam from your breath as you exhale.
Lying down with your camera and telephoto lens thrust out before you on top of a beanbag, you move forward, less than six inches at a time. You push your camera ahead first, then drag your body along to catch up. You approach the birds slowly, watching them with your peripheral vision, rather than staring at them directly.
Most of the birds are still asleep, with heads tucked deeply into their back feathers. Occasionally, one lifts its head, gazes at you for an instant through half-closed eyes, then tucks its head back into place. They are a widely mixed group—dunlins, sanderlings, a few godwits. You notice a couple of ruddy turnstones are already awake, searching for food at the water's edge.
As you move to within 30 feet of the flock, you sense uneasiness in a few birds. You know that if just a couple of birds panic, the entire flock will explode. Slowly, you sit down on the sand and wait. Five minutes. . . ten minutes. . . fifteen minutes. . . the birds settle down. You begin sliding slowly, almost imperceptibly closer without getting up.
You stop occasionally to look through the camera. Framing the closest birds, you experiment with composition. You've got plenty of time. Your camera's exposure meter tells you there's nowhere near enough light for photography, but you are excellently placed, less than 15 feet from the flock. You know that soon the sun will start gradually burning off the morning mist. And for a brief space of time, the light will be perfect—bright enough to saturate the film with the subtle colors of the shorebirds, but wonderfully diffused by the rapidly vanishing mist.
This is a fascinating experience for anyone who likes to watch birds. As you sit there for perhaps two, three, or more hours, you have nothing to do but wait patiently. You are totally focused on the moment. It becomes an exercise in total concentration, almost a meditation. You find that you are hyper-aware of the colors, textures, and shapes of the natural scene. You become part of the environment. It's a remarkable feeling.
As the morning slowly warms up and the light grows stronger, you raise your camera and click off a few shots. You feel giddy with excitement. Here you are, within a few feet of a massive flock of shorebirds, and they seem to regard you as easily as an old post or a rocky outcropping among them. In your mind's eye you can already see the photographs and they're great: a long-billed curlew looking comically large among some Lilliputian dowitchers, a couple of redknots having a shoving match, a maverick dunlin taking an icy splash-bath in the middle of some sleeping sandpipers.
If you're a good stalker, shorebird photography can be that interesting and enjoyable. On more than one occasion I've had the experience of having a flock of shorebirds return and land all around me after being flushed by a passing jogger or cyclist. You know that you've been completely accepted when that happens.
Another effective stalking technique is to sit down in a good location and wait for a bird to approach close enough for you to take a picture. Some people may not consider this to be true stalking because you're not actively trying to sneak up on a bird, but I disagree. Being able to remain motionless for long periods and to blend into the habitat is the essence of stalking, and the better you are at this skill, the more effective you'll be as a bird photographer.
Besides being able to stay still, to be good at the "sit and wait" technique you must be good at choosing the best place to set up your camera, or you might spend a lot of long, boring hours waiting in vain for some birds to show up. It helps if you know the habitat well and the behavior of the birds that inhabit it. If you spend a lot of time watching a local marsh, you may notice that some of the wading birds or waterfowl frequent certain areas at particular times of the day, to feed, bathe, or perhaps sun themselves and preen. Get your chest-waders on, move over to an area like that, and try to push yourself back into the reeds to hide yourself. If you have patience and can take sitting for a long time in muck and water, some birds should eventually come close to you.
In some situations, you don't even need to hide yourself at all, provided that you know how to do a good imitation of a statue. I sometimes just walk out into the middle of a shallow marsh and sit down in the water, planting my tripod legs right down into the mud. Again, let me emphasize that this should be a very shallow marsh or the water will come flooding into your waders when you sit down. I've used this technique several times in the saltwater marshes and estuaries of the California coast to photograph black-necked stilts, avocets, and other interesting birds I found there. Getting set up was always easy. I just quietly waded over to the edge of the water and sat down. Of course, some of the birds would walk quickly away or perhaps fly a hundred feet or so, but they would almost invariably start working their way back to where I was sitting, especially if it was a favorite foraging area. It was just a matter of waiting quietly for an hour or so.
I recall trying this technique once on the coast of Texas. I was there on assignment to gather information and take pictures for an article I was writing about the peregrine falcon migration. One morning I decided to take a few hours off and try to get some shots of some local wading birds. The place I chose to set up was little more than a huge rain puddle next to a construction site. Several tri-colored herons, white ibises, and one reddish egret foraged in the muddy water. Not far away, bulldozers noisily ripped the topsoil and plants away, destroying the habitat to make way for another high-rise hotel complex. I didn't take the time to stalk carefully. I figured that the birds had been around a lot of construction workers and were probably somewhat used to people. I walked quickly out to an area where a lot of the birds were feeding, and I sat down. The birds, meanwhile, had flown to the other side of the water, next to some reeds.
Though I was pretty sure that the birds would come back fairly quickly, I was surprised at what a short time it took. Within 20 minutes they were all around me, some of them actually getting too close for my 400mm lens. One tri-colored heron was so engrossed in foraging that it came within six feet of me. I was debating for a moment whether I should try to switch to my 80-200mm zoom lens, but a couple more birds came near that were a better distance away. As the Gulf sun warmed the midmorning air and cast a pleasant rosy glow over my tiny piece of wetland, I shot roll after roll of film of these cooperative wading birds.
When you go to a new place like that, you really never know exactly how the birds are going to act. You may find that they're as tame as the wading birds along Florida's Anhinga Trail, basically willing to pose for anyone who passes by. Or they could be afraid of their own shadows. The more you practice and the more places you visit, the more instinctive you'll become at sizing up a situation quickly and using the most effective stalking technique.
Some photographers like to work a marsh more actively than this. They put on their waders and walk through chest-high water, pushing their way through the reeds. I've done this myself and have taken a few decent shots, but more often I end up with pictures of grebes or other marsh birds peeking furtively through the reeds at me, their bodies mostly blocked by vegetation. Rather than do this anymore, I rely on a floating blind when working in water that's more than thigh deep, staying in the open water and photographing birds along the edge of the reeds.
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