Photographing Backyard Birds is my free book about backyard bird photography: photographing the birds in your own yard. It comes from years of shooting from my deck here in Lavaca, Arkansas, and it is not about expensive trips or rare birds. It is about setup, patience, and learning how yard birds actually behave.
The book is 72 pages with my photographs throughout, and all of them were made in my own yard. It covers backgrounds and light, feeder and birdbath placement, perches, camera settings I actually use, and the hardest skill of all: knowing which photos to let go.
No cost and no sign-up. If you enjoy it, share the file with anyone who photographs birds in their yard.
What Is Inside This Backyard Bird Photography Book
- Why Backyard Birds Are Harder Than They Look
- How Birds Behave Differently in Yards Than in Wild Areas
- Setup Starts With Background and Light
- Backyard Bird Setup Checklist
- Feeders and Birdbaths Are Not the Same
- Step-by-Step Feeder Placement
- Common Feeder Placement Mistakes
- Step-by-Step Birdbath Placement
- How My Birdbath Setup Changed Over Time
- Camera Settings (Reality-Based)
- Timing, Patience, and Knowing When to Shoot
- Perches: Where Most of Your Best Photos Happen
- Backgrounds: The Part You Can’t Crop Away
- Light: Working With What You Actually Get
- Consistency: Why Boring Setups Produce Better Photos
- Restraint: Editing, Selecting, and Letting Most Images Go
- What Backyard Bird Photography Really Gives You
New wildlife photographs and stories from Arkansas and Oklahoma go up on this site every week. Thanks for reading. Steve
But you do not need a refuge or a rare bird to make photographs worth keeping. Start with the birds already visiting your feeders, and pay attention to the light and backgrounds behind them. For example, a simple branch placed near a feeder can turn an ordinary visit into a clean portrait. And because the same birds return day after day, you get second chances that a single trip rarely offers. New to backyard bird photography? The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has a good guide to common backyard birds.