Photography Hide – Location Test Shoot

Over the last few weeks I have been busy formulating a plan to build a permanent bird/wildlife photography hide somewhere on my property. At first it seemed like I had numerous possible sites, not surprising as I have over four acres of land to choose from. However, as the search progressed and the list of requirements grew it became clear that actually the number of possible locations wasn’t as numerous as I first thought. One of these possibilities even made it to the point of me starting to clear a seemingly endless amount of brambles before it was abandoned in favour of a far more suitable site.

The first and most obvious item on the wish list was for it to be in a location that would naturally attract a wide array of birds. This meant being near to a variety of trees, bushes and hedgerow etc. Second on the list was for it be close enough to the boundary of our neighbouring fields to give me a chance of attracting the local Buzzards, Red Kites and Owls. Next it needed to be in a position to be able to provide a suitable backdrop to the images I planned to create. That means having enough greenery and foliage that is far enough away from the perches to be out of focus when shooting with anything from a 400mm to 600mm lens. With the perches for garden birds being set at around fifteen feet from the hide, the background would need to be two to three times this distance behind the perches – so thirty to forty five feet…ish. You can already see why my possible locations was diminishing. Next on my wish list was to be able to have a reflection pool to one side of the hide which again requires a similar background to perch distance ratio. Next I wanted the hide to be far enough away from the house so as not to be disturbed by our usual comings and goings and to also not be in the areas that are used by our holiday cottage guests who might inadvertently disturb the birds whilst people are using the hide. I resigned myself to the fact that there was no ideal place and compromise would have to play a part, or so I thought.

The ideal place was not immediately obvious but once I started to think outside the box a suitable site soon came to mind. It was in one of smaller meadows a short distance from our house but the key to its success would be creating the entrance via a much larger meadow. True this would mean cutting a door size hole in the hedge that separated them but this would provide a highly screened entrance to the hide meaning comings and goings to the hide could be done almost invisibly. Due to the slope of the meadow the perch positions would be a little downhill and the backgrounds further downhill. To compensate for this I’ve decided that the new hide will be dug down almost one metre into the ground. An engineering nightmare, especially so given the fact that there is also a drainage ditch/stream to bridge directly behind the proposed entrance to the hide. This sunken idea though, means the shooting position will be at almost ground level but will also be almost level with the top of the perches thus giving plenty of shooting perspectives. The bramble patch to the right of the new hide will have to make way for a reflection pool and hopefully there will be sufficient space behind this pool for a suitably blurred background. Perches for the raptors can be placed a little further away near to the boundary of the neighbouring field with the distant opposite side of the valley providing a suitably green backdrop to these images.

So with strimmer in hand and excitement in my heart I set about clearing an area to set up a temporary pop up hide to try some test shots. Next, a scavenger hunt to find a selection of perfect logs and fallen branches to create some perches. With acres of land and a couple of hundred trees you’d think this would be a simple task. Not so! It turns out I have a very high bar when it comes to perch paraphernalia. Eventually I settled on a couple of suitable mossy covered items and set them up in the correct line of sight to the hide. The perches were baited and a feeding station set up close by. Finally it was time to get hid and wait.

I left the feeders in place overnight to give the birds a chance to find them and sure enough on my return the following morning the usual suspects of garden birds had found the bounty. I had a successful first shoot, just a couple of hours but this was enough to tell me I was onto a winner.

The big bonus was the appearance of a Woodpecker! Not on the perches unfortunately but on the feeding station post hmmm, more work required. Other surprise visitors included a bunch of Bullfinches which enjoyed pecking at the Dock which was by now well past it’s best and dying back but must have still been full of seed as there were at least four or five Bullfinches in attendance for most of the morning. True this dock was a little further away for truly meaningful still images, it still gave me hope and ideas for the future.

For test shoot number two I decided to try to attract the Woodpecker back. This time I found a lovely mossy branch that could easily pass as a small tree trunk. I mounted this onto a couple of four by two’s and placed it near the hide. I also drilled a few holes into the “trunk” and packed them with Woodpecker “treats”. Optimistically I left this in place overnight and returned the following morning. I wasn’t hopeful as I suspected the Woodpecker would need at least a few days to find my fake trunk. Unbelievably that morning Woody was pecking his way up and down the post enjoying his tasty treats. Even more unbelievably prior to Woody’s arrival visitors included a very obviously female Grey Squirrel, a Jay, Nuthatch and Coal Tit. My resident Robin was also back as were the Blue Tits and Great Tits.

All in all a very successful couple of test shoots with a great variety of both stills and video shot despite both shoots being very short in duration. The backgrounds proved equally successful providing a lovely creamy, colourful, subtle backdrop to all the images. I haven’t tried the perches for the Buzzards and Kites yet but I am hopeful. They are always in attendance around the cottages and often perch in our trees. The Tawny Owls have also made their presence felt over the last few nights with the trees around our pond awash with their customary twit twoos. Oh and a Heron made two visits to our pond yesterday and whilst not quite in sight of the hide it does bode well.

Watch this space for detailed hide plans and progress of the build. It’s panning out to be quite awesome.