African Photo Safari - The Floating Bird Blind
by Nigel and Wendy Dennis

There is no doubt about it - bird photography can be hard work. By comparison photographing big mammals in Africa is easy stuff usually undertaken from the comfort and safety of a vehicle. Most of the best bird photography needs to be done from a blind. Over the years I have tried all kinds of variations on the theme. I have used blinds dug into the ground to shoot at birds-eye level. I once built a blind on stilts to photograph in a marsh. When the need has arisen I have even stuck a blind up in a tree on a flimsy platform. Probably the best success, and certainly the most fun, though was when I used a floating blind for waterbird photography.

The floating blind concept is not a new one. I believe that a National Geographic film crew used something along these lines almost thirty years ago to make a documentary on pelicans. In the early eighties, Canadian wildlife photographer Tim Fitzharris used a car inner tube covered with camouflage netting. The photographer wore chest waders and sat in a webbing sling supported by the tube waist deep in water. This rather makeshift craft was propelled with flippers. Tim's low-level images of shy Canadian waterfowl were a great inspiration to me at the time. I had no doubt that this could work in Africa. My concern was that most of the time it is far too hot here to wear chest waders, and to sit waist deep in water without protection is asking for trouble. Many of our lakes and rivers are crawling with leeches, not to mention an interesting array of waterborne diseases!

I decided to build my floating blind on a miniature catamaran used by trout fishermen. Called a kick boat, it consists of two inflatable tubes supported by a lightweight aluminium structure with a seat in the middle. I made a few modifications to enable me to support a camera and added a camouflaged cloth blind stretched tight across two bowed lengths of plastic conduit pipe.

As I was living in Durban, South Africa at the time I headed for my local Umgeni estuary to try out the rather untidy prototype. This particular spot is popular with birder watchers and folks simply out for a stroll. I felt ridiculous waddling across the mudflats in this strange contraption - I have no doubt I looked ridiculous too! My embarrassment was forgotten as soon as I got into the water and shuffled my way unseen up to the first group of birds. The resting flock of water dikkops took no notice - in fact I could easily get close enough to take tight portraits with just a 300mm lens. On the same maiden voyage I was able to get some nice shots of a little bittern - a bird that I had never before photographed.

The floating blind proved to be quite a revelation, as generally the birds took little notice of what appeared to be a harmless pile of old rubbish drifting around. It worked particularly well with herons and kingfishers. In fact on several occasions I had pied kingfisher perch right on top of the blind just a few centimetres above my head. This was rather enchanting, but no use at all for photography! Once I got so close to a goliath heron that the huge bird peered down at me with a quizzical look - probably because it could see it's own reflection in my lens.

After many successful outings on the Umgeni estuary, I took the floating hide up to Barberspan near Delareyville (an area in the northern part of South Africa). This huge and rather daunting stretch of water is a noted waterbird location, with great numbers of waders and waterfowl. Several thousand flamingos were present when I visited, but they were not keen on the floating hide at all. Although flamingos do not appear to be the most intelligent of creatures, there always seemed to be one in the flock that was suspicious of the hide and would edge away taking the others with it. In fact the birds generally seemed to be rather skittish and uncooperative at Barberspan. Much of the time I had to content myself with photographing white-breasted cormorants. These confiding birds were actually curious of the hide and would often swim alongside when on their fishing forays.

One morning as I was trying to get a shot of a cormorant with a fish in its bill, I was suddenly aware that I had strayed out of the shallows. Most of the time I used the floating blind in knee deep water and so propelled the craft by shuffling my feet along the bottom. I usually carried a long pole on board to push through the deeper sections, but discovered to my horror that I had left it in the car. The wind caught the blind canopy like a sail and within a minute or two I was a hundred meters offshore. Barberspan is several kilometres long and it looked like I was in for a lengthy trip. There was nothing I could do to steer or propel the craft, so I could only sit it out and see where the wind took me. Far out in the pan the water became quite choppy. I did not feel good about this at all - apart from the fact that I had several thousand dollars worth of camera equipment on board - I am not a strong swimmer. I am not sure how long my unexpected sailing trip took, as to be honest I was feeling pretty panicky out there - it was a considerable relief to eventually reach the opposite shore! I was so pleased to reach dry land that even the hour long tramp back to my car carrying the blind did not seem so bad.

By the way, since I had no wish to repeat the Barberspan sailing trip, I have made an important modification to the floating hide. The Mk2 hide now features a silent electric trolling motor for propulsion - but just to be on the safe side there is space to stow a lifejacket as well. If other photographers want to have a try at constructing and using this type of blind in Africa, I think I should add it would not be prudent to use the craft where crocodile and hippo are present!

Photo Tip - Camera Angles

Camera position is a key element in making attractive wildlife images. Nine times out of ten a low camera angle produces the most striking and impactful pictures. Not only does a 'worms eye view' give a more intimate image, a low level shot also looks 'cleaner' as backgrounds are distant and thrown completely out of focus with a telephoto lens. The floating blind described this month is a great way of taking low level images of waterbirds. By using a fairly powerful telephoto, the apparent narrow depth of field makes the subject jump out of the frame. The same applies on land. Where Park regulations allow it - and there is no long grass or bush in the way - I sometimes photograph from under my vehicle rather than at the usual window height. I spent most of last winter photographing in the Kruger National Park, where one is not permitted get out of a vehicle. Most game in Kruger is exceptionally habituated and animals close to the road may be photographed with quite a short telephoto. I found many shots worked better by backing off a bit and using a long lens - at times I even coupled my 600mm f4 with a 1.4x converter to effectively produce a 840mm lens. The resulting images, whilst taken at car window height, had a clean crisp look as the camera was looking along rather than down at the subject.

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About the Author:

Born in England in 1953, Nigel Dennis developed a deep interest in the natural world from an early age. First finding expression in the form of painting nature subjects, he also became interested in photography just over twenty years ago. Living in England at the time, his first projects included photographing red deer and the shy nocturnal European badger. For the badger photography he spent over forty nights photographing whilst still managing to hold down a busy day job. Nature photography soon overtook painting as a means of expressing his passion for the natural world and from the early eighties his work began to be published in books and magazines.

He moved to Africa in 1985 with a view to making wildlife photography a full time profession. During his first few years in Africa he continued with his previous career in sales and marketing, but still spent about one hundred days a year photographing by utilising all his annual holidays and weekends. Eventually having built up a sufficient stock of wildlife images he launched into the rather precarious occupation of freelance wildlife photographer in 1991. Since then he and his wife Wendy camp in the African bush for up to nine months each year. Although they work mainly in South Africa they also photograph regularly in Namibia and have visited Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Madagascar.

Nigel Dennis photographs all natural subjects including reptiles, insects, flora and landscapes but tends to concentrate primarily on African animals and birds. His work is marketed by fifteen stock photo agencies and has been published world-wide in over twenty five countries. He also runs his own photo library supplying images to the publishing and advertising industries, and currently has over 40,000 transparencies on file. He does not take on commercial or advertising assignments and works primarily on book and magazine projects. Nigel Dennis has had twelve wildlife coffee table books published to date.

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You can see more of Nigel's work at the following websites:
Profotos - Nigel Dennis
Nigeldennis.com