Show us your best bird photos

To win books and Topflite bird feeders.

Send in your own photos of birds visiting your garden and you could win! Take a great pic of a wild bird, and email it to mailbox@nzgardener.co.nz. The best three will win a copy of Paul’s book on bird photography Getting Closer and Topflite’s Wild Bird Welcome Kit (RRP $29.99) which includes a Wild Bird Energy Cake (peanut), a Wild Bird seed bell, a Wild Bird Cake Feeder, and a Wild Bird Feeding and Identification Guide.

We will also select four runners-up, who will each receive a copy of Getting Closer and Topflite’s Wild Bird Energy Cake Feeding Set (RRP $12.99), which comes ready to hang with a Wild Bird Cake Feeder and Energy cake (berry) and can be refilled.

You don’t have to travel to “unspoilt” areas of countryside to take vibrant and convincing wildlife photographs. Many birds have made urban areas their home, even to the extent of being reflected in their names – house sparrow, barn swallow, house martin. In the UK, the black redstart colonised bomb sites after World War II and is now almost exclusively found in urban environments, especially derelict buildings (which are disappearing fast as the result of urban regeneration).

Water, trees and open areas are found in abundance in many cities. Increasingly, patches of weeds and wildflowers are being left to thrive at the edges of manicured parks and gardens. Cemeteries, with their often overgrown corners and mature trees, are also good places for birds. In great cities like London and Rome, even seemingly inhospitable environments like skyscrapers have become home to peregrine falcons, which nest on cliff-like ledges and catch feral pigeons to feed their chicks.

And several European cities play host on winter evenings to vast, swirling murmurations of starlings as they settle to roost. These offer opportunities for photographers as the flocks form and reform, creating fascinating shapes in the sky.

City birds can be approachable, especially where there is heavy foot traffic like public parks and botanical gardens. Sometimes it’s useful to show the urban environment in your photos but, if you want to present your subject in a neutral setting, then with a little bit of ingenuity and manoeuvring (to avoid having signs and lamp posts in the background), you can achieve this. For example, try taking pictures of waterfowl in the duck pond in your local park by lying as close to the water as you can get and shooting as they swim towards you. The results can be terrific.

Londoner David Lindo has become famous as the Urban Birder. His philosophy is simple: “Anyone can become an urban birder. You can do it anywhere and any time, whether you’ve got the day to spare, on your way to work, during your lunch break or just looking out of a window. Look up and you will see.” David’s website (theurbanbirder.com) lists some tips to get people started: “See your urban environment as how a bird would: The buildings are cliffs and any green areas are an oasis for nesting, resting and feeding. Don’t stress about learning the names and songs of all the birds you encounter, just enjoy them. Learn at your own pace.” ✤

A pair of welcome swallows sit on an ornamental feature in the duck pond at my local botanic gardens. The birds were nesting in a small wooden structure nearby and were very approachable. Perhaps the few feet of water between me and the birds made them feel secure enough to relax.

Paul Sorrell at Orokonui Eco-Sanctuary.