What food ?

[Cutter]

Hi everyone, just wanted to know if anyone had any experiance regarding attracting birds? No the feathered kind, what food is best and what sort of distance away from the bird to get the best shots? I have the canon100-400L

THankyou

[cosmicma]

it's best to have a mixture because differnt types of food attract different breeds of bird
things like peanuts , sunflower seeds , fat balls , sunflower hearts and mixed wild birdseed also mealworm

if you want to attract as many different type of birds as you can all of the above but if your after a particular breed you need to know if it's a ground feeder or prefers feeding from a perch ie blackbirds are ground feeder but long tailed titis will almost allways feed from suspended fat balls, woodpeckers will feed from suspended peanut feeders and nut hatches feed more or less from anything with peanuts ( ground or perch they don't care ) but to get a good photo of a nut hatch you really want it clinging to a branch or tree trunk so peanuts in a half cocoanut shell fastend to a branch or tree trunk works well and try to photo the bird before it reaches the food

in my experiance of photoing birds i usually put peanut feeders up , fat balls , half cocoanut shells full of wild birdseed and peanuts fastened near to where i want the bird to land and spread a variety of different food on the gorund but not too spread out

once the birds get used to you i can usually get within 15 feet or less sometimes

[Cutter]

Originally Posted by cosmicma

it's best to have a mixture because differnt types of food attract different breeds of bird
things like peanuts , sunflower seeds , fat balls , sunflower hearts and mixed wild birdseed also mealworm

if you want to attract as many different type of birds as you can all of the above but if your after a particular breed you need to know if it's a ground feeder or prefers feeding from a perch ie blackbirds are ground feeder but long tailed titis will almost allways feed from suspended fat balls, woodpeckers will feed from suspended peanut feeders and nut hatches feed more or less from anything with peanuts ( ground or perch they don't care ) but to get a good photo of a nut hatch you really want it clinging to a branch or tree trunk so peanuts in a half cocoanut shell fastend to a branch or tree trunk works well and try to photo the bird before it reaches the food

in my experiance of photoing birds i usually put peanut feeders up , fat balls , half cocoanut shells full of wild birdseed and peanuts fastened near to where i want the bird to land and spread a variety of different food on the gorund but not too spread out

once the birds get used to you i can usually get within 15 feet or less sometimes

Thanks cosmica great advice, I have just secured a branch from my fence which has a tree as a background. I have drilled a few holes in the branch to put food in. The birds that are around at the moment are gold finch. These two cought me by suprise and it was in low light. Bad photos I know but hope to get better ones with a good setup.