Indispensable tools for glassing birds

Photographing birds in the backyard is one thing, and glassing them in the field is quite another. I have feeders in my yard to attract perching birds. And, if you’ve been to any of my 4 bird galleries, you will see I’ve had over 30 species of portraits so far.
But birds afield is quite a different experience. I won’t go into all of the details on this post, but I will share two vital tools in glassing the hundreds of species we have in Missouri. The first is the Merlin phone app. If you are somewhat familiar with the habitat of the birds around you, you can call in many birds with Merlin – as witnessed here with the prothonotary warbler images. He came flying in within 30 seconds of my call. I had seen him earlier so I knew he was in the area and a swampy marsh is his habitat. (I also used a bluetooth speaker to project the calls) On this morning he came within 3 feet of me. So close my telephoto couldn’t focus on him.

The second tool is a tripod with a gimbal head. I hadn’t used it in months and I’m glad I brought it along. I almost forgot how useful these instruments are. Small perching birds don’t stay still for very long. They are always flitting about – especially with chasing bugs. Although the gimbal is on a metal tripod and is much heavier than my other tripods, I only had to carry it a few hundred yards to reach the marsh. So, no big deal. If I had to hike great distances, I would put in on a carbon tripod. The gimbal allows me to quickly swivel and pivot as needed to catch the bird in action. I still have to focus once he is in the viewfinder, but today’s lens are pretty responsive to that. Maybe I’ll share more later on how I focus on small moving subjects. It takes practice, but it can be done.
The gimbal head I use is an off brand and I had to modify it slightly, but I’ve seen the same gimbal under different names priced well under the $75 I gave for mine. So, unless you have money to throw away, there’s no need to pay $300-$500 for a gimbal head.