The two most important resources for wildlife photography are time and patience. No book can ever teach you those. The third most important resource is knowledge of wildlife habits and habitats. Books can get you part of the way, but being out in nature everyday is the only way to really get a grasp of it.
I know this is not what you were asking for, but really, when it comes down to it, if you have the equipment, the next more important thing to spend time on is tracking and waiting for wildlife. Most of the other stuff about blinds, wildlife etiquette, etc. you can learn online. The "where and when" to go can only really be learned by getting out there and talking to the people who work with wildlife.
I was once told that if you want to make great wildlife photos - start with squirrels in your backyard or a local park. If you have the time and patience to photograph them well. then you are ready for the serious stuff. I quickly learned that I don't, so my photography revolves around landscapes, the easy-to-photograph wildlife of East Africa and the wildlife I see "along the way" here in Ontario.
Good Luck!
This is awesome advice!
Your third piece of advice I would consider
the most important, and that is the greatest knowledge a wildlife photographer can possess is
knowledge of his subject, its habits and preferred terrain, followed secondly by having down the rudiments of light and photography. I have
a blog post that provides a case study of this point. In a nutshell, I was searching for a Red Widow Spider, of which I had only a small amount of knowledge. Basically, this spider is only found in Florida, and only within certain,
specific microhabitats within that state.
I thought I had done my research, and spent an entire day searching-and-searching, to no avail. What I had done in my haste to get out there looking for it was omit a few "minor details" of its preferred habitat from my study. Fortunately, with the aid of a smartphone and some internet research, I picked up on these details ... drove to a slightly different habitat ... and
whollah! found what I was looking for and was able to get my photographs. Therefore, absolutely, if a person is looking for very specific creatures out in the wild, studying these creatures and really understanding their preferred habitats, eating preferences, time of day/night seen, etc. is vital to success.
Another example, I was part of an expedition where a different new species of jumping spider was discovered ... and I had the privilege of going with the scientist who had previously discovered it. This species was found in the Ocala National Forest in central Florida. Yet it wasn't found "just anywhere" in this forest, but
only in areas that had Rusty Lyonia and Scrub Oak together. Another species of crab spider was found only on False Rosemary plant. These were the only types of foliage these creatures could be found on.
These may be extreme examples, but if a person didn't know these incredibly important details (or have access to a scientist who knew them), they could literally "spend all day looking" through other parts of the forest and never find a thing.
Hope this helps,
Jack
