Harriet Pemberton
Why a Cottage Window Makes an Excellent Hide
Few hides are as comfortable as a cottage window. You are warm, the kettle is close, and the birds have already decided that the glass, the curtains and the shape of a person behind them are part of the scenery. Rural gardens help enormously: a straggling hedge, a lichened wall, ivy on an outbuilding. Add a feeder and the regulars arrive — blue tits, great tits, coal tits, robins, dunnocks, chaffinches, goldfinches, house sparrows, and with luck a nuthatch or a great spotted woodpecker. A grey squirrel will turn up too, and he is a perfectly good subject.
Setting Up a Simple Feeding Station
Position matters more than equipment. Site the feeder two to three metres from the glass and slightly to one side of your usual seat, so you shoot at an angle rather than head-on. That gives modelling light along the flank and avoids a flat, straight-on portrait.
Think about the background before you think about the bird. A dark evergreen hedge, a mossy wall or a mass of ivy a couple of metres behind the feeder gives separation and soft, uncluttered tones. A feeder against open sky means silhouettes and blown highlights all winter.
- Offer a perch. Fix a weathered stick just below the feeder so birds pause in a natural position before dropping to the food. That is where the photographs are made.
- Match food to season. Sunflower hearts for tits and finches, nyjer for goldfinches, suet in cold snaps, live mealworms for robins in spring. Fresh, unsalted peanuts in a mesh feeder only.
- Keep it clean. Scrub feeders and the surrounding area fortnightly with hot soapy water, rinse thoroughly, dry, then refill. Trichomonosis spreads quickly among finches at a dirty feeder.
- Give birds an escape route into a hedge, and keep cats indoors at dawn and dusk.
A baffled pole will slow squirrels, rarely stop them. A squirrel on the perch is not a failure — it is a fine subject in low winter light.
Clean the Glass, Then Deal With Your Reflections
Shooting through glass works beautifully provided the glass is genuinely clean and your own reflection is dealt with. Clean both sides — outside with warm soapy water and a squeegee, inside with a microfibre cloth and diluted white vinegar — the evening before a session, not five minutes before.
Then sit where you intend to sit, in daylight, and look at the pane. You will see yourself. Draw the curtains behind you, switch off lamps, and drape a dark cloth over your shoulder and the window frame. Some photographers cut a lens-sized hole in a piece of black card. Every reflection removed adds contrast to the final image.
Bring the lens to within a few centimetres of the glass and keep it parallel to the pane, so any remaining smudges fall out of focus. Remove a rubber lens hood rather than pressing it against grubby glass. An old sash window opened a few inches gives a glass-free view, at the cost of warmth and a little stealth.
Working With Natural Light
Never use flash on garden birds: it is unkind, it flattens feather detail and it will empty the feeder for an hour. Natural light is ample.
Mornings are best. The first two hours after sunrise bring raking light and busy birds, and an east- or south-east-facing window is a gift. Overcast days suit feather detail perfectly — soft, even, with no harsh shadow across the eye — and simply ask for a higher ISO.
Sun behind you at roughly forty-five degrees to the subject gives a lit flank and a catchlight in the eye. In low winter sun the bird may be backlit; expose for the bird and let the background fall dark, which suits a robin or a blackbird better than a washed-out frame. Note where light falls on the feeder through the day — a small notebook saves guessing in February.
Camera Settings and Quiet Patience
Small birds move constantly, so shutter speed comes first.
- Shutter speed: 1/500–1/1000 sec for tits, siskins and goldfinches; 1/250 sec is usually enough for a blackbird.
- Aperture: f/5.6–f/8. Wider for the softest background, stopped down a little if two birds share a perch.
- ISO: auto, capped somewhere around 3200–6400. A slightly noisy sharp bird beats a clean blurred one.
- Focus: single point on the eye, continuous drive, and a short burst rather than one hopeful frame.
- Support: a beanbag on the sill, or a tripod set just behind it. On a phone, tap to focus on the eye, use burst mode and switch off the flash.
Pre-focus on the perch and wait. Sit still, and resist opening the window for a better angle; the birds settle within a few minutes once they have accepted your shape.
Fieldcraft, and a Quieter Sort of Morning
Photographing from indoors means you never chase, flush or stand over a nest. Add window decals or a net curtain if birds strike the glass, and remember that collisions are worst when feeders sit between three and ten metres out.
Do not photograph birds at a nest box. Disturbing certain species at the nest is an offence under the Wildlife and Countryside Act. If the woodpecker arrives, admire it, shoot the perch and leave the nest alone.
Then put the camera down, pour the tea and simply watch. The photographs are the excuse. The hour at the window, with a robin on a frosty stick and the light coming up over the hedge, is the real reward.
