Photographing Ecuador’s Andean Cock-of-the-rock: Worth the 4AM Alarm?
There are easier birds to photograph.
Birds that appear in good light.
Birds that sit nicely on an exposed branch.
Birds that don't require an alarm at an hour beginning with a four.
The Andean Cock-of-the-rock isn't one of them.
And perhaps that's part of what makes photographing one so memorable.
Ecuador is home to an extraordinary variety of birds, but there was something about the Cock-of-the-rock that I particularly wanted to photograph.
You only need to see a photograph of a male to understand why.
That almost impossibly bright red-orange plumage. The black wings. The strange rounded crest that seems to swallow the bill completely.
It hardly looks real.
But photographing one isn't simply a matter of finding the bird and pointing a long lens at it.
You have to enter its world.
And its world is dark.
Very dark.
First, You Have to Understand the Lek
One of the most fascinating things about the Andean Cock-of-the-rock isn't actually its appearance.
It's its behaviour.
Male Cock-of-the-rocks gather at traditional display areas known as leks, where they call, posture, jump between branches and compete for the attention of females.
And they aren't particularly quiet about it.
Several males can be displaying within the same area, creating a strange combination of movement, colour and sound inside the forest.
For a bird photographer, that sounds perfect.
Several spectacular birds gathering in one predictable location?
What could possibly go wrong?
The answer is simple.
Light.
The most active period around a lek is often around dawn, and the birds are displaying beneath the canopy of dense cloud forest.
So while your eyes are seeing one of the brightest birds imaginable, your camera is seeing something very different.
Not enough photons.
A Bright Red Bird in an Almost Dark Forest
This is what surprised me most about photographing the Cock-of-the-rock.
You look through the viewfinder and see this incredible bird glowing against the vegetation.
Then you look at your exposure.
And reality arrives.
You need shutter speed because the bird moves.
You want a reasonably clean background.
You need enough depth of field.
And your camera is quietly reminding you that there is almost no light available.
Something has to give.
For me, this is exactly the kind of situation where ISO becomes less important than getting the photograph sharp.
I'd much rather come home with a sharp photograph at ISO 6400 than a beautifully clean file of a blurred bird.
Modern noise reduction is incredibly good.
It can't fix motion blur.
So when the light disappears, I protect the shutter speed first.
That doesn't mean blindly using the fastest shutter speed possible. If the bird settles and remains still, I'll happily bring the shutter speed down and take advantage of the extra light.
But the moment behaviour starts, the equation changes.
A Cock-of-the-rock can go from sitting quietly to jumping, displaying or disappearing behind vegetation remarkably quickly.
Your settings need to be ready before that happens.
My Starting Point for Cock-of-the-rock Photography
There isn't one perfect group of settings for this bird.
Light changes.
Distance changes.
The bird changes.
But in dark cloud forest, this is how I think about the problem.
Aperture: as wide as I can reasonably go.
Shutter speed: determined by what the bird is doing.
A perched bird gives you opportunities to experiment with slower shutter speeds.
A displaying bird doesn't.
Instead of memorising one shutter speed, watch the bird and react to its behaviour.
ISO: whatever it needs to be.
This is the important one.
Wildlife photographers sometimes become obsessed with keeping ISO low.
In good light, absolutely.
At a Cock-of-the-rock lek before sunrise?
You have bigger problems.
Let the ISO climb.
Get the photograph.
Exposure Can Be Trickier Than You Think
There's another challenge.
That plumage.
The male's colour is so intense that it's very easy to concentrate on getting enough exposure into the dark forest while forgetting about the brightest part of the photograph.
The bird itself.
So I'm watching my highlights carefully.
I want detail in those feathers.
If recovering some shadow noise later is the price of protecting the brightest plumage, that's often a trade I'm willing to make.
This is also why I don't like relying entirely on how an image looks on the back of the camera.
A photograph can look fantastic on a small LCD in a dark forest and still have problems when you get home.
Use the information your camera gives you.
Then concentrate on the bird.
The Background Still Matters
Finding a Cock-of-the-rock doesn't automatically mean you've found a photograph.
This is something I've become increasingly conscious of with bird photography.
The bird can be extraordinary and the photograph can still be ordinary.
Cloud forest is messy.
Branches cross each other.
Leaves catch highlights.
Bright gaps appear behind the subject.
One step to the left can improve everything.
Or ruin everything.
At a sensitive lek, of course, you shouldn't be moving around trying to manufacture the perfect composition. The welfare and natural behaviour of the birds come first. Quiet observation, limited movement and avoiding flash around displaying birds are sensible practice.
So you work with the position you have.
And you wait.
I pay particular attention to three things:
What is directly behind the bird?
Is there anything bright competing with it?
Where is the bird likely to move next?
That last question can make the biggest difference.
Instead of following every movement through the viewfinder, sometimes it's better to understand which perches the birds are repeatedly using and prepare for the photograph before it happens.
That's when bird photography becomes less reactive.
You're no longer just photographing a bird.
You're anticipating one.
Don't Photograph Every Second
This sounds counterintuitive.
You've travelled to Ecuador.
You've got an Andean Cock-of-the-rock in front of you.
Surely you should be holding the shutter button down?
I don't think so.
Watch first.
Photograph second.
If the bird is partially hidden behind three branches with a terrible background, taking another fifty photographs isn't going to improve the situation.
Instead, watch what it's doing.
Where does it keep returning?
Which direction is it facing when it calls?
Is there one particular opening in the vegetation?
Does one perch give you a cleaner background than the others?
Those observations are worth more than another hundred almost-identical frames.
When the opportunity finally comes, you'll be ready for it.
What I'd Prioritise If I Photographed Them Again
If I went back tomorrow, I wouldn't be thinking about getting as many Cock-of-the-rock photographs as possible.
I'd be looking for three different photographs.
First, the portrait.
The classic photograph that shows that extraordinary crest, colour and character.
Then I'd want behaviour.
Calling, displaying, interacting with another male — something that explains what actually happens at a lek rather than simply showing what the bird looks like.
And finally, I'd want an environmental image.
This might actually be the photograph I'd value most.
A smaller bird surrounded by Ecuadorian cloud forest.
Moss.
Vegetation.
Darkness.
Atmosphere.
Something that tells you where this bird belongs.
Because sometimes getting closer doesn't make a wildlife photograph better.
Sometimes you need to pull back.
The Photograph I Wouldn't Want
There's also a photograph I wouldn't want.
A technically perfect image created at the expense of the bird.
The Cock-of-the-rock's lek behaviour is precisely what makes the experience so extraordinary. Males gather at these traditional sites to compete and display, and disturbance can interfere with the very behaviour we've travelled there to witness.
No photograph is worth changing that.
If the angle isn't perfect, it isn't perfect.
If a branch is in the way, sometimes the branch stays.
Wildlife photography should document an encounter, not control it.
And strangely enough, accepting those limitations often makes the whole experience more rewarding.
So, Is the 4AM Alarm Worth It?
Yes.
But not because the Andean Cock-of-the-rock is an easy bird to photograph.
Quite the opposite.
You're dealing with darkness, movement, dense vegetation, difficult backgrounds and a bird that has absolutely no interest in your photography.
And that's what makes it interesting.
It forces you to make decisions.
Do I sacrifice shutter speed or increase ISO?
Do I photograph this bird now or wait for a cleaner opportunity?
Do I chase the portrait or try to show some behaviour?
Do I fill the frame or leave enough space to show the cloud forest?
Those decisions are what wildlife photography is really about.
The camera settings matter.
The lens matters.
The light certainly matters.
But the longer I photograph birds, the more I realise that the most important skill is knowing when the photograph is actually there.
And sometimes finding it requires getting out of bed at 4AM.
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The Branch Matters More Than the Bird