Especially when shooting birds, the background has as much influence on the image as the bird itself. The most pleasing backgrounds are totally blurred. We don't want bright objects or spots in the background. We don't want any distractions in the background.

But how do you get a good background and what makes a great background? How do you get it blurred? Let's start with the easiest part first. Long lenses by the nature of their physics have less depth of field. So when you use a long lense with a large F.Stop you get your background blurred easily. Having said that there are things you can do to get that background even nicer.

• Increase the distance between the bird and the background. The more distance between the bird and the background the more blurred your background will be.

• Choose a background that is darker than the bird. The human eye tends to go to bright objects. We want the viewer's eyes to go to the bird, not the background.

• Long lenses have a narrow field of view, so by just moving a few feet in any direction can radically change your background. So we need to pay attention not just to the bird but to the background. Move to change it if needed. Remember that you can also move up or down and that can make a world of difference.

• Get close to the bird. The closer you are to the bird the more it will blur the background

The background on your left is just perfect. The background to the right of the bird is a bit distracting. It was very distracting to begin with. I just could not move to get a better angle. So I darkened the bright parts of the background to the right substantially in post processing. The idea is to get as much separation from the background as possible.

The object is to not have the viewer ever notice any background. Your eyes should not be tempted to ever even look at the background. Having pleasing colors in the background may help to compliment the object you are photographing but it should not compete for attention.

          Just move a little and see what a big difference that can make. Think about your background not just about your subject.