The feeder decides everything
The quality of your bird photos is settled before the camera comes out: it depends on where the feeder sits. Place it three or four metres from a window, with a bush within two metres so the birds have a retreat. Without a bush they will not come down; too close to the bush and they stay in it.
Light behind you, always
A backlit bird becomes a black silhouette, and a black silhouette loses the plumage colours that carry half the criteria. Position the feeder so the sun is behind you in late morning — which is also the activity peak.
Three habits that change the result
- Lock focus on the empty feeder before the bird arrives, by holding your finger on the screen.
- Use burst mode: out of ten frames, two will have the bird in profile with a clear head.
- Do not zoom past 3× on a phone: beyond that the image is reconstructed and the detail is invented.
Which species to expect by season
In winter, feeders draw tits, robins, greenfinches, chaffinches and sparrows — the commonest species, and therefore the easiest cards to get. In spring, traffic collapses: birds find insects elsewhere. That, however, is the season of rare passage species, the ones that carry the most sought-after cards.