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Here’s a pretty photo of a male Eastern bluebird with four quick photography lessons.

First, you don’t need fancy gear or to travel to exotic locations for good wildlife photos.  This was taken while I was sitting on my deck. A pair of bluebirds were raising chicks along the edge of my lawn. They would hunt insects over and on the lawn. I stuck a stick in the ground to give them a perch. They promptly took advantage of the perch and I got my photo.

The next lesson is to try and get the wildlife doing something. Seeing this guy with food in his mouth tells a story. You know he has a nest with chicks nearby and he’s hunting to feed them. That gives us a more interesting image that just the bird alone.

The third lesson from this image is to keep it simple. Here we’ve got a bird on a stick. There’s a nice, clean background and nothing in the foreground to distract your attention from the bird. Try to frame your photos to avoid anything that you don’t want viewers to look at instead of the subject. 

The fourth lesion is simply to be ready to enjoy encounters with wildlife anywhere at any time. Vermont has lots of fascinating wildlife, pay attention and you’ll find photo opportunities all over the place.