Barn Swallows and the Ethics of Bird Photography
[Click images in this post to view in a light box.]
The ethics of wildlife photography, and of bird photography in particular, came up a few times for me last week.
The first was while re-reading Gerrit Vyn’s book about bird photography. Vyn writes extensively about the use of playback, playing bird vocalizations—for example, through a smartphone—to attract birds. He talks about the technique’s disruptive potential, and when, if ever, it can be used. I later read a blog post written by birder-extraordinaire David Sibley on the same topic. There’s still more research I need to do on the topic but where I land right now is that I simply don’t know enough about most birds yet to be confident that I’m using playback sensitively and responsibly...and so I just shouldn’t.
(Note: At the bottom of this post, I link to other several other helpful resources on the ethics of wildlife photography.)
The second time the subject came up was in a conversation with my housemate Elijah. There is a Red-winged Blackbird nest that can be viewed from a respectful distance from a bridge in a nearby park. We went a few days ago to see the chicks in the nest; I brought my big telephoto zoom lens to get a better look. We watched the mother bird leave and return several times with food for her hungry nestlings. (The not-very-good photo here is zoomed to 850mm and heavily cropped. The mother is just leaving to get more food.) Back at home, Elijah asked me if I would ever consider getting closer to the nest for the sake of a photograph. My answer: Absolutely not when—as with playback—I can’t know for dead certain that I’m not disrupting the family or distressing the mother bird. It’s just not worth it. I want to be able to say of every one of my pictures: “No birds were harmed in the making of this photograph.”
And then ethics came up for me again on Friday night. As I was leaving Baskett Slough National Wildlife Refuge, I saw this Barn Swallow, backlit by the low sun, sitting on a fencepost in the parking lot. After stowing most of my gear, I slowly moved into position with my camera to get a photograph. But just as I was crouching down next to my van, the swallow flew away. “Oh well,” I thought, and moved to leave. But 30 seconds later the swallow came back. Again I got low to take a photograph...and again the swallow flew away. After a bit of fluttering about, the swallow came back yet again and to the same place. This time I was able to take a few photographs before the bird and I parted ways.
The next part is hard to explain if you’ve never been to Baskett Slough. Instead of leaving the refuge right away, I continued further up the road to check out the wetlands, then turned the vehicle around to double-back the way I came. As I was driving past the parking lot where I‘d photographed the bird on the fencepost, I saw a falcon chasing several swallows in a field immediately adjacent. The swallows all seemed to get away, but it got me thinking: What if that poor Barn Swallow was getting a few minutes rest on the fence post before its nightly escape from the local Peregrine Falcon? I don’t feel bad trying to photograph it that first time, but should I have tried a second or third time? Ultimately, I think I was okay, because I didn’t chase it, and because the swallow kept coming back to within just a few feet of me when it could have gone basically anywhere else. (I wasn’t next to any structures that may have had a nest.) Still it was a reminder that what for me is a mere photograph is life-and-death for birds and other wildlife. No wild animal cares about being Instafamous. They are just doing their best to survive and raise young in a world that is unpredictable and, literally, red in tooth and claw and talon.
I’m relentless about getting better at photography; I want to be just as persistent in thinking about how to do it ethically. My ultimate goal for my bird photography is to help people notice—as I have only recently—our remarkable winged neighbors, and to protect them.
Resources on Ethical Wildlife Photography
My two favorite bird photographers—Gerrit Vyn and Melissa Groo—have a lot to say about the ethics of bird photography, and I look to them as trusted guides on the matter. Here are a few resources resources I have found useful:
Photography Birds: Field Techniques and the Art of the Image, by Gerrit Vyn
“How to photograph wildlife ethically,” by Melissa Groo (National Geographic)
“From Wild to Captive: A Call for Ethics in Modern Nature Photography,” by Melissa Groo (ILCP)
“Audubon’s Guide to Ethical Bird Photography and Videography”