Friday, April 18, 2008
'Shooting' birds a passion for Abraham
Mark Taylor
Mark Taylor's Outdoors column and notebook appears regularly in The Roanoke Times.
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Birding and photography have been a natural match since the days of the daguerreotype.
Digital cameras now make it easier and cheaper to get good results, since you can take hundreds of shots without using up rolls of expensive film.
One local photographer who specializes in birds is Robert Abraham of Christiansburg. His work is familiar to readers of the Current edition of The Roanoke Times, where many of his photographs have appeared in the "Your Best Shot" feature.
Abraham, who will turn 80 in May, retired 15 years ago from Christiansburg Printing, the business he used to own. For several years, he worked at underwater photography as a scuba diver. But in recent years, he has concentrated on bird life in Southwest Virginia.
Most mornings, Abraham can be found setting up his gear along the Bissett Trail, which parallels the New River in Radford. This trail and the connected River Trail offer about three miles of terrain with both the more common land species and harder-to-find waterfowl.
Good birders have always known that persistence is the key to getting the rare species. Abraham believes the rule applies equally to bird photography, and he has taken thousands of photographs along this stretch.
"I'm there most mornings from 8:30 on, day in and day out," he said.
And he's not picky.
"Bluebirds, tree swallows, titmice, chickadees, white-breasted nuthatches, ducks, I like 'em all," Abraham said. "One of the best sights I've seen was a mature black-crowned night heron last summer.
"Then there was an immature black-crowned the summer before."
And the secret to getting a good shot?
"You shoot a lot -- that's the answer," he said. " Oh, and light. Whenever it's gray, you're in trouble. You need bright sunshine for the best results."
Most of his recent photographs have been taken with his Canon EOS-40D digital camera. He gets close-up shots without having to sneak up on the birds with a Tamron 2X teleconverter.
While stalking the birds, Abraham inadvertently discovered that he could coax several species to literally eat out of his hand.
"One day, this chickadee flew up to my face, about a foot away," Abraham said. "He did that several times, up real close, time and again. I thought to myself, 'You know, I bet these birds would feed from my hand.'"
Sure enough, he extended a hand filled with birdseed, and the chickadee landed and picked out a few seeds.
Since then, tufted titmice and white-breasted nuthatches have joined the chickadees in eating from Abraham's hand.
"And the white-breasted nuthatches!" he said. "Boy, those little guys will stay for an hour if you're willing to feed them.
"You've got to stay still, and also and stay pretty close to foliage cover so they'll feel safe. One day, a tufted titmouse started singing right before he came to my hand. Then he sampled one morsel and didn't like that, so he tried another and then another. He was completely unafraid."
