Welcome to the Titty Inn

I have a serious confession to make: I like tits.

As this is a nature photography website, I hope I do not have to explain what kind of tits I mean.

Tits are cheerful little birds that can be found everywhere. Everyone knows the Great Tits and Blue Tits that visit about every single garden in town. But they come in a wider variety of sizes and colors.

The one thing they have in common is the chittery sound of their calls. Everytime I hear a tits call, I cannot help to smile.

My feeding station in the forest is visited by a large number of Great Tits, a duo of Blue Tits, a changing number of Crested Tits and two Willow Tits. Last weekend, a Coal Tit checked the surroundings of the feeding station for the first time. I expect its reservation for the Titty Inn anywhere soon. The only missing tit in this impressive line is the Marsh Tit. Although this species is known to happily visit feeders, the local forest is a very wet one, which they don't like.

The next post will be about the Willow Tit, possibly and hopefully followed by one about the Coal Tit.

Blue Tit; Canon 1D Mark III w. 500/4 IS; 1/160s at F4 and ISO 400; Tripod from permanent hide.

Bad Hairday

Now that the temperatures are dropping and natural food sources are becoming scarce, the feeding station attracts more and more hungry guests. Great Tits were the first to find the banquet feast, followed shortly by Nuthatches, Blue Tits and Robins. Two weeks later, Willow Tits checked the perimeters of the feeding area and are now regularly to be found on the seeds.

Last weekend, I was surprised to find several Crested Tits in the area. After having checked the restaurant area from a safe distance first, they now continuously visit the feeding station.

I really like their chittery calls (reminds me of spring) and bad hairdo. They are, however, notoriously difficult to photograph well as they hardly ever sit still for a split second. Even worse, last weekend skies were grey with little light on the forest floor. I had to work with ISO 800 and still only got 1/50s at F4. Talk about low light!

From next weekend on, temperatures may drop below zero. I'm eager to see what effect that will have on activity at the feeders. I'm expecting a few more species. And so does the local sparrowhawk. I've already seen it near the feeders several times now, but not yet within photographic range. But alas, winter's still to come!

Crested Tit; Canon 1D Mark III w. 500/4 IS; 1/50s at F4 and ISO 800; Tripod from permanent hide.

Schizophrenic treehugger

With not much on my current photographic shortlist and some time to spare, it seemed like a good idea to spend a few hours in my permanent forest hide to check the situation. I was happy to see that the feeding frenzy had finally started.

As usual, the great tits formed the majority of the munching guests. They are always the first to find a new feeding station and somehow their numbers hugely increase over time. Last week there were two, this week there were already 7. Let's see where this ends. Anyway, besides the tits, a couple of nuthatches were happy to take some nuts and seeds.

I was intrigued by their almost schizophrenic behavior. Nuthatches will never visit the feeding station first, but timidly assess the situation from a distance. They will wait for other birds (mainly tits) to show them that dining is safe. Then, the knob inside their heads is turned and they become very aggressive towards the other birds. They literally kick them from their perches and from the food. But when they have finally chased away every other bird, they start to feel insecure again, fly away and the whole story repeats itself.

To me, this image shows the timid nature of the nuthatches. Small, silent, inconspicious and from a safe distance.

European Nuthatch; Canon 1D Mark III w. 500/4 IS; 1/200s at F4 and ISO 500; Tripod from permanent hide.

Zoomblurring

Some time ago, I entered a blog about panblurring. In short, panning a flying or running subject with a relatively slow shutterspeed will render the subject sharp and the background as pleasantly colored streaks.

With non-moving subjects, you can extend the technique to what is known as zoomblurring. Just frame your subject as you always would, but make sure you have a relatively slow shutterspeed to work with. This can be anything between 1/30th of a second and several seconds. Just try and see what looks best.

During the exposure, zoom your lens in our out. If you do not have a zoomlens, you can always try to use your footzoom and run towards your subject (or away from it) during the exposure (not!). This technique can lead to some very interesting results, either very beautiful or utterly ugly. Just don't use it too often or it will quickly become a gimmick, but keep it in mind as just another crayon in the photographers box.

Last year in Norway, we had a very drab day, but at the end of the day the sun finally peeked through. There were some very nice pastel colors in the sky, but I could find no decent foreground in the few minutes that the sunset would last. So I zoomed in tightly on a mountain ridge and used the zoomblur technique. I like the result, but of course your mileage may vary.

Norwegian sunset; Canon 20D w. 70-200/4; 1/15s at F11 and ISO 200; Beanbag from car roof.