Bird Photography - 24 hours in my photo blind

this video is sponsored by squarespace on my last trip i spent five days on a little protected island here in denmark trying to get my first photographs of the badgers in snow i used a camera trap but i was not successful i had to go home empty-handed this time i'm in my photoblind trying to capture photos of the crows these birds are incredibly shy and my tactic is to go down there the night before and sleep there so that the birds will not be aware of me being there and hopefully that can give me some great opportunities come on my good [Music] mint this time i'm here to photograph ravens and cross but in denmark especially in the countryside away from the towns they are really shy because they have been haunted for decades and now the ravens are protected but it's still there if you hunt an animal for so long they will be afraid of uh of their people so now i'm trying another strategy because i i suspect that when i come in the early morning they're sitting around and either they hear me or they see me because they are sitting in the trees during the day and they don't calm down on the ground so this time this strategy is to be here now it's about five in the evening and then i just want to sleep here and then you know the night will be there and hopefully the birch will forget everything about that i'm here and then in the early morning when the first light comes i'm already here ready with the camera ready with everything no noise no light no sound no no what to say headlamp or anything i'm just ready to photograph the birds [Music] you [Music] [Music] so so um um ah is ah so [Music] so [Music] hmm [Music] hmm [Music] ah [Music] hmm [Music] so this was just incredible like this is the first time ever and i mean i've been in this photo blind for a lot of hours and a lot of days the last like four or five years and i've never seen a hearing here but now i have and i got photos of it and i got video of it i'm really i feel so lucky and i have seen a lot of crows no ravens but crows and a lot of them so the tactic about going here in the night and sleeping the blind definitely paid off so way yeah [Music] [Music] it's almost completely dark outside and all the birds are gone but i can still hear the magpies sitting in the bushes and making their like special sound i really really love that i really really feel grateful for the photos i got today and also for seeing all the crows and the heron and the magpie and the jays and bassart it has been such a great day i can't remember such a great day in the blind it has been the best day in the blind for a long time really really nice now i'm going to pack my stuff and it's time to go home and yeah what a day wait [Music] hey okay [Music] okay [Music] so it turned out to be a very successful technique sleeping in the blind to photograph the cross and this behind the scenes i'm going to talk a little about that i'm going to talk how i taught my dog to actually go in the blind without making noises and i'm also going to tell how i wake up in the blind with the phone ringing without scaring the animals and a little about attracting bird with their with their sound from the phone so yeah let's get started before we move on i want to thank squarespace for sponsoring this video squarespace lets you build professional looking websites without any knowledge about coding and web design you simply choose one of the many great looking templates and by dragging and dropping photos and changing the text and colors you can make it your own you can create beautiful galleries to showcase your work and it's very easy to update the gallery with your latest photos it also has built-in e-commerce so you can start selling your prints calendars and digital products so if you need a new website head over to squarespace.com to start your 14 days free trial and you can use the off-code modern helmet to get 10 off your first purchase i've put a link in the description i have been trying for a long time to photograph these crows and the only times i've had success was like going down there uh two hours before it really started it like even started to get light and that means this time of the year i basically have to go down there at four o'clock in the morning and that just gives me a bad sleep because i cannot go to bed at seven or eight and just fall to sleep so um i i decided to try this technique and i basically went down there had a really good night's sleep and then i woke up in the morning with my phone about half an hour before the light started and then everything was just perfect i got the cross i got the the bossard and the the heron and it was really fantastic so a few things on that um i think it's very important to just be comfortable because if you go out there without food or anything you know you will get you'll get tired and it's just boring so i brought a good book i brought a good sleeping mat a good sleeping bag some coffee tea and just had a great time with bjorn my dog was lying just down there in front of the in front of the the oven um another thing is to get up in the morning you you need an alarm clock apparently because i do not wake up like so early um a little technique i used to let me try to set my alarm it's a look the badger it reminds me of it's it's soon spring and all the things i have to do let me just try to set the alarm and then it will ring in a little bit and you can hear for yourself how i do this um because when you have your i always have my phone on silent or i have the fly mode on because i do not want to get distracted by mms messages ticking in or you know because when you're bored i think at least here in in 2021 and most people tend to take their phone and start to faff around and i do not want to do that because i will miss the moment i will get sucked in by the pho good morning it says listen it's beautiful this is the blackbird and [Music] i came up with that ideas like quite a few years ago because i was always annoyed because maybe i promised to to to keep an appointment and i asked my friends to call me if i forgot because and then i i you know when it's ringing and i'll you know submarine alarm thing going on you know the animals will know that you are there so basically what i did was to uh to to make some find download some bird recordings and i just use them as ringtones on the phone and that's pretty smart because then i have the the blackbird for wake up call and if i need messages i have the nightingale or seagull or something like that some of the birds that's out there and that is pretty smart but i think uh but um having these ringtones uh or just you know for for waking up will not disturb the birds and then uh on the other hand uh what i was about to to to to talk about was to actually put the phone in flight mode because it is too tempting when you're boring to sit and faff around and i just tend to lose the moment there so that was about a waking up thing another thing is like you have probably seen i have bjorn in the blind and when he was a i would say a puppy a pup a little one um i i took him always in my backpack when i was out photographing because then he would notice the the birds and then when i was sitting photographing he was getting used to it and he was always with me in the blind and then he can look out the window he can see the birds and then sometimes i give him a little treat and ask him to lie down and then because it's normal for him then he does not react on the sound of the birds and if he starts to react i try to get his attention and i had him to sit just i have learned him some silent sign so when i do like so he sits if i do like this he will lie down and then when he do that i give him a treat and then his attention is away from the animals so that was a little about how i i have the little fellow with me out in the field uh last thing is you know you can hear this a black bird singing and um quite a few years ago i started using that to attract birds when you sit when you're in the mating season or if you play a bird on your phone that bird will usually come to protect its territory but i do not use that anymore or that means i only use it if there's a purpose that is greater than just me getting a photograph i can share an instagram or something like that i need to serve a decent purpose like if i'm working with a scientist or something like that and because it is very efficient but you know when i started photography it was you you went down to the photo store and bought 10 roll of films and then on a good day you would maybe use two rolls of film then you have to go home and you to develop the film and wait a three days and you got your ds or you know your photos and you could sit there with a light table and look at them and select a few and there was not the internet so you could not share them except from a few times during the year when you would meet up in the futso association and show your the the the five or ten good photos you could show on the on the big screen today it's different the reason why i'm telling this story is because today it's different at that point it was so hard to photograph it was hard to learn to photograph because you had to wait three days to see the result it was more like you have to learn all the the aperture shutter speed all that kind of stuff so basically being able to make a decent photo and then you had nowhere to share it so they were not the point is there were not so many photographers at that point and today it's easy today luckily it's easier today because more people can get out in nature and have these great experiences but the downside is that there are so many of us so many photographers so when you at that point let's say you go out to a there's one photographer you go out to the fox then once a week for a few hours and then you go back that that fox will only get disturbed once a week for a few hours and everything will be fine but if there are 50 photographers in the area you know that everyone goes out two hours every day to to to or once a week to that fox the point is just we are so many nature photographers we have such a huge impact on nature and it's just my opinion we also have to think a little further than our own needs because nature cannot speak for itself it cannot vote it cannot do anything it can just be there and it 100 depend on our behavior and the way we treat it so i tend to to think like using these sounds for birds is stressing the bird because the reason why they come is because the male thing there's an intruder another bird of the same species and he wants to scare him away and they have a busy time and there's no reason for making them even busier so i just want to mention that it's a good technique and it can be used but at the same time you probably knew that already but at the same time i want to to say think twice before you just start to use all these tools that we have available to attract the wildlife so yeah i think that was it for now um i'm looking forward to seeing the next projects i'm working on now with you and the spring is here it's awesome and yeah there's so much going on but they take care and they see you out there

Channel: Morten Hilmer

Views: 500,225

Rating: 4.9319811 out of 5

Keywords: bird photography, wildlife photography, photo blind, photo hide, permanent photo blind, nature photography, canon r5, canon r6, canon 200-400mm, canon r5 for wildlife, canon r5 bird photography, canon r6 bird photography, nordic, ground pod, camouflage, behind the scenes, how to, how to photography, birds of prey, nature photographer, home made, denmark, wildlife photographer, tips, wildlife photography tips, photography inspiration, behind the scene, morten hilmer

Id: EV5WC3ZBZ2w

Length: 25min 8sec (1508 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 18 2021