Don Lee Bird Photography
Welcome to my nascent website! I am a semi-retired scientist, and full-time bird photographer living in Southern California. My earliest photography efforts used a simple cell phone camera to capture birds at our backyard feeder. Although the intent was to help identify these fleeting visitors, I was immediately taken by the intrinsic beauty of the images. Capturing more species with better image quality soon became an addiction. On the plus-side, it did provide more exercise than similar anal-retentive hobbies such as stamp-collecting. Of course, this led to an unrelenting quest for better (i.e. more expensive) equipment, travel to exotic (i.e. more expensive) places, and eventually a lifetime membership in Bird Photographers Anonymous. And really, I should point out that being relegated to living in the garage isn't all that bad. As my experience photographing birds has grown, several key observations have become apparent:
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All birds hate you
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People will eventually stop laughing when they spot you lugging an 800mm lens while wearing a Ghillie suit; however, the birds wont
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The rarity of the bird that you attempt to image is inversely related to the correctness of your camera settings
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The satisfaction with any image is directly proportional to the financial expense and physical pain expended to obtain it. This is a direct corollary of the more fundamental wisdom "I bang my head against the wall because it feels so good when I stop."
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The concept of "shooting" a bird is a misnomer. As a scientist, I must point out that you are capturing photons directed from the bird to you; hence, more appropriately, the bird is "shooting" you, consistent with #1 above.
With these thoughts in mind, I invite you to peruse the images herein, organized by taxonomy under the Gallery menu. Clicking on any species will bring you to photos of that specific bird. The site will be updated periodically to include images from future photography trips. Comments are welcome and I will try to respond as time permits.
Finally, I want to acknowledge the world-class professional photographers who have helped me develop my photographic skills at several wonderful workshops: Alan Murphy, Greg Downing, Doug Brown, Greg Basco, Keith Bauer, and E.J. Peiker.
Don Lee, 2019