UK Wildlife Blog

A few months back I tried out a few methods of getting close which I will give basic, sort of beginners level guide too, although imagine many readers will already know most if not all this stuff. As always with wildlife photography you must put the well being of the animal first, so be careful to not frighten the birds. Now I'm no expert on this but I do now have some experience and have read up on waht has been published by biologists and wildlife photographers.

The first technique is Stalking
No this is not something you get arrested for! This basically involves moving very slowly towards the animal/bird and stopping the moment the animal reacts to your presence. Once the animal goes back to feeding or what ever its doing you can start to move slowly again, until it reacts and so on. It works best when there is some cover, but there was obviously none on this beach! The trick is knowing when to stop, before the animal is frightened away - what is known as the 'flight distance.' I'd recommend practicing on some common birds first before trying it on any waders etc. Bear in mind though that the flight distance varies between species and individual animals. Anyway I tried this technique and got fairly close to some turnstones. The birds were wary at first

But I got reasonably close in the endThe birds moved off away from me and then I retreated carefully.

The second technique was Sit and Wait
Here I sat down on the shore line ahead of where the turnstones were heading and waited for them to come past. I managed to get this shot before a dog and walker scared them off!I have used this successfully on turnstones and sanderlings previously.

And the last technique is Hiding
The idea here is to hide yourself and/or prevent a silhouette against the sky by standing behind something and/or with something tall behind you. On the beach I stood behind a large boulder with the sea wall and cliff behind me (at the red arrow) and just stood very still. The turnstones eventually came past me along the shore line (at the yellow arrow)

One had a look but didn’t seem bothered

And one came within a metre of me (at the blue arrow) in the end

And just to show you can never predict nature as I was walking off the beach a turnstone flew in a posed as if I wasn’t there!

So that is a summary of my knowledge. Most waders are no where near as cooperative, so I think the best bet is a bird hide but for sanderlings and turnstones, sitting and waiting, especially behind or against cover is the best bet.