One technique that is useful that will be touched on here is Pre-focussing. Pre-focusing enables a photographer to prepare for the shot. In bird photography, often we hear about photographers complaining about missing shots or missing an action of say interesting instances like:

a) Bird feeding on a particular flower

b) A Kingfisher diving for a meal

c) Bird entering its nest etc.

Most of the time we will hear people complaining about their equipment having too slow an auto-focus, in accuracy in auto focus, lens not good enough for the shot and so forth. Have we thought back and wondered how some of the great avian photographers of the past actually captured great photos of birds even with fully manual focus lens? How did they do that? I got to learn form some serious birding friends is that one technique often overlooked by amateurs is the technique of Pre-Focusing ( coupled with great patience and observation).

Pre-focusing, coupled with patience in observing the birds and not rushing for the shot will often yield great results. A place like Sungei Buloh is home to many flora and fauna. Guess what, those birds residing in the reserve do have their daily routines just like us. Birds being animal themselves, do have specific feeding patterns and behaviours. One I had a chance to visit Sungei Buloh very early in the morning from 7.00am (Okay avian photographers ....don't laugh at me...this may not be early to you guys. I manage to get inside and anchored myself to the first hide.

For the next hour or so, I could see a Kingfisher shuttling from one particular branch to a particular spot by the low tide murky water of the opposite bank. Too bad he's too far away from where I am.
This similar repeated cyclic activities of a group of sand pipers circling around the hide and diving into a particular spot on the muddy plains. I observed its movements and then followed its path with the lens and pre-focussing on a little rock nearby with my 300mm lens in MF (Manual focus mode), I manage to grab this shot . Basically pressing the shutter when the birds flew back again into my focus region - in manual focus!!!! I learned a new technique.

The diagram on the right shows roughly how the pre-focus would be done. At times we may be limited by the position of hides or shelters that are already present.

In any case, putting these flows in mind may help to make your birding shoot much smoother to execute. At least to put you through a good start.

The diagram on the right illustrates and lets us see how positioning for a panning shot for say a BIF (Bird in Flight) shot would either make or break. Most of the time, failure to track the subject is due to non optimized positioning.

Using the pre-focus approach and proper positioning it allows photographers to have better shot focus accuracy and consistency.