Blinded by the Birds

Over the last couple of decades I’ve become increasingly drawn to birds. The more I come to understand and appreciate these creatures, the deeper my admiration. There is something captivating about birds: their beautiful colors, their graceful flight, their gorgeous singing, their funny behaviors. Maybe we humans envy the ability to fly, so we gaze at them with awe and vicariously soar along.

But birds also fill a crucial role in their world: their voracious appetite for bugs keeps the numbers of many insect pests in the safety zone. Knowing that human activity—destruction of habitat and several forms of environmental harm—has taken a devastating toll on bird populations, I feel an urge to do what I can to make their lives a little more peaceful and healthy, when they decide to inhabit our corner of the world. Then, later in the season, when their fancy turns to live bugs, we reap the benefits.

I set up a bird feeder years ago and faithfully keep it stocked with seeds and suet. Throughout the winter half a dozen kinds of feathered critters fly to and from the feeder to nearby branches, then bash apart sunflower seeds and litter the ground with the shells—sort of an avian-generated mulch. I enjoy the sounds of birds throughout the nearby woods, but am also magnetized by the sight of these perky creatures who are magnetized by the feeder.

If I stand at a distance and watch the feeder frenzy, I become captivated by their antics. Most of them (like chickadees and titmice) carry away a seed to whack it open on a nearby branch. Others (like finches and cardinals) squat on the feeder tray, mashing seeds open with their powerful beaks. I’m often compelled to dig out my binoculars to get a closer view.

It seems that if one gets sucked this far into bird antics, attempts at bird photography are inevitable. So I began shooting some photos, but quickly realized that, without unreasonably expensive telephoto lenses and such gear, good photos were beyond my present equipment. So why not build a blind close to the feeder, crawl into it with my camera, and see what I get?

After pondering various ways to blind myself to the birds, I came up with a scheme to try: sit on top of my stepladder and drape myself with a green tarp. OK, it’s pretty homely, but we have privacy here to do such weird things. If I leave the tarp sitting by the feeder—draping the stepladder—I find that the birds quickly learn to ignore the giant green lump. It doesn’t move and has no threatening tentacles.

When I climb under the tarp, peeking through a hole I cut in it, they tend to ignore me after a few minutes—even though my feet protrude from the bottom a little bit. (I’m careful not to shuffle them. And birds never saw a tarp with feet before, so they have no fear of it.) My blind seems to be working fine. I’ve gotten closer shots than I could otherwise, but it does get a little stuffy under there. Oh well, sacrifices are required, if you’re gonna get those National Geographic-like pix.