Photographing Wildlife - Louisiana Waterthrush and Songbirds - the Shoot

Join me as I photograph Louisiana Waterthrush and other songbirds in northern New Jersey in the spring.
View more details and full sized photos at
rayhennessy.com/lessons/louisi...
Shoot video:
• Photographing Wildlife...
Photo edits video:
• Photographing Wildlife...
Some great lessons can be learned watching me try to photograph Louisiana Waterthrush on this particular morning. The first of which is patience. I had a plan in mind and the moment I stepped out of my van it all changed when I saw my target bird right in front of me. I followed that bird for just a bit and then decided to stick with my original plan. I now see that was a mistake and I should have stayed with the original pair of birds I saw. It made sense in the moment to follow my original plan, and I knew the habitat I wanted to head to was visually more pleasing, but the first spot I hiked to had no birds, the next spot had 1 male Louisiana Waterthrush who insisted on singing non-stop up high in the trees. So I bailed on my plan and hiked back to where I saw the birds in the morning and sure enough with a little time and patience there I was able to get some photos I liked of that pair. If I had stayed with them I could have likely gotten a lot more opportunities. That’s how you learn, this is all part of the process, going out, seeing what birds are cooperative, which locations work for photography. In my mind I thought the other two locations would be more ideal but in the absence of birds, or cooperative birds, the slightly less desirable location was the spot that gave me the shots I was after. I hope you enjoy watching me go through this process and also would like to share with you that you never guess correctly 100% of the time. I’m much better at determining where I should photograph birds but I still choose wrong plenty of the time.
Chapters:
0:00 - Intro
0:51 - Setup
14:00 - Shoot
19:04 - Photo 1
20:06 - Photo 2
30:46 - Photo 3
45:08 - Photo 4
50:14 - Photo 5

[@neilrobinson6019]

Thanks, really enjoy this type of video!

[@RayHennessy]

Thanks os much!

[@neilcole3406]

So Ray was you in bird detection mode? Thanks loved the video!

[@RayHennessy]

Yes, I think this was before the Z9 had specific bird eye tracking but it had animal eye which included bird tracking. That made the compositions much easier!

[@PeterLariviere]

'Not target migrating species'..... that is my problem right now and I find it demoralizing when I know I am ignoring birds because it's not the one on my list...and I know I need to stop the 'birding' and get back to the photography. I got to spend time with Louisiana Waterthrush this past February in Cuba since we have none up here in Eastern Ontario. They are a wonderful species to photograph but I didn't get anything close to the quality of your images.

[@RayHennessy]

Yeah, that's a tough thing to let go of all those wonderful migratory birds but damn they are tough! Thanks for watching and for the kind words about my photos. I'm glad you got some time with the Louisiana Waterthrush, they are a fun bird!