Now you have your table set up, its time to begin the fun part, photographing the birds! But where are they?
Just because you've built your table doesn't mean the birds will be queuing up to visit it. You will need to supply plenty of food to entice them, start with food most birds will go for, I would suggest fat balls and pellets, peanuts and a good quality seed. Over the next few weeks you should start to see who visits and what food they like. Start to introduce other foods and after a while you will know what works best. This can vary depending on your location, it might take a couple of months in a town or city to encourage the birds, but only a few weeks in a country setting or if you're near woodland or trees.
Now you have the birds making regular visits, get set up to take your photos. You can be in a hide, in the house or use any cheap camo netting you can buy on Amazon or Ebay. Start removing the food from the hangers but add food in the areas you want to attract the birds. You can add the food to the table or a perch, then sit and wait.
Now one thing you will quickly learn, birds are quick, just as you think you have the shot they're gone, so a little tip I learnt, pre-focus on an area and wait for the birds to come to you. That way you have a chance of capturing a decent shot like this Robin. Eventually you'll be able to anticipate where they'll land and you ratio will improve. It's all about patience :)
You should now be ready to experiment and really start to enjoy your setup, go out and look for perches that would look nice in photographs like this moss covered perch above, but please remember to treat nature with the utmost respect, only look for perches on the ground, don't remove from tree's or anything that's growing, you should be able to find plenty of material on the woodland floor.
In the next post I'll talk about the more technical aspect of bird photography.
Enjoy Nature