There are only two things that can get me out to do yardwork. A chance to use power tools and working on my photo setups.
So when I headed out with the chainsaw this morning to trim some dead limbs off an old tree it wasn't too long before I thought about how I could use one of them to improve one of our bird photo blind setups.
I'd set the area up with a number of feeders and perches "scarecrowed" off a post, but the post & crosspiece were nothing but old lumber so they didn't add anything to the setup and they didn't provide a place for woodpeckers to perch on vertical logs.
The next question was how to secure the log. Sinking it in concrete would be the most reliable, but I hate to have to dump concrete in the ground unless I really need to (it has to come out sometime, which is not very much fun at all), and if I didn't like the way the log looked of course it'd be tough to change.
So instead I simply sunk a cinder block in the ground and stuck the log in one of the openings. A footing block would have been very good also, but I didn't have one laying around. Aside from hacking through the roots and rock it was a quick process.
Then I attached the log to the existing post, offsetting it to the front so it would hide the post as much as possible. At first I worried that the log didn't hide both sides of the post, but then I realized that since only one side of the log would be in the sun at a time so as long as I lined my lens up correctly I'd be fine. And because I set the log up about a foot in front of the post then when I moved my blind around for shooting in the afternoon (about 90 degrees in the case of the way I use this setup) I'd have a clear shot of the log and any birds on it.
A bungee cord was a quick solution to attaching the middle of the log to the post, although I might replace it with a bolt later on. The large upper branches of the log provide some room for bigger birds (maybe even some raptors) to perch, but are high enough up I can keep smaller perches for the little birds lower down.
As you can see from the photo the arrangement of perches is now kind of a mess that needs to be sorted out with the new log. But it looks great and is a big improvement. The larger logs on the ground are there to hide various bits of plumbing for the small fountain and pond and the sprinklers. Definitely a good use of an hour starting off a labor day weekend which will feature some bird photography while the ribs are in the smoker!--David