Creating a Natural Environment

In this video, professional bird photographers Doug Gardner and Gary Carter give you tips on how to create a manmade environment to photograph songbirds. Gary shows you how he created this natural-looking environment on his own property. For their ideal territory, birds need food, water, and habitat. In a wooded setting, Gary built a pond and surrounded it with dead logs and plants. For bird food, Gary creates his own suet mixture, changing the mixture depending on the seasons. He also uses mealworms to provide the birds with protein. To photograph the birds, he created a series of blinds. Doug and Gary capture images of Carolina wren, cardinals, woodpeckers, pine warblers, and more in this beautiful manmade environment for songbirds.

See all videos in our How to Photograph Songbirds Course:

• How to Photograph Songbirds—Course Preview
• Creating a Natural Environment
• Photographing with Fill Flashes
• How to Attract Birds for Photography
• Capturing Memorable Songbird Photos