What equipment would I need to get this shot?

Welcome to NSN. You will find a wealth of resources here and your photography skills will grow by viewing and posting. Look forward to seeing many of your images--and reading some of your essays in the essay forum. Speaking of which---check out Eleanor's recent essay about what she has done in her backyard to set up areas for photography. (While you're in that gallery check out two recent essays about Viera wetlands in your backyard!!)

Also take a look at one of NSN columnist Artie Morris's bulletins in which he discussed backyard perchs at:
http://www.birdsasart.com/bn119.htm . You should also run over to Barnes & Noble on New Haven Avenue and get a copy of his book The Art of Bird Photography. (I grew up in Melbourne and remember seeing bobcat carcasses hanging on the fence polls across the street from where B&N is now).

You've done the work of creating an environment where the birds and animals are welcome, now with some tweaking you'll get it set up for photography!!

Welcome,
you can get a portable blind for relatively little outlay. I use a Carbon Rifleman Riverbottom blind
http://www.keystonecountrystore.com/pro ... BLI2137804

It is "spring-loaded" (I think that is the term) and pretty well sets itself up, it folds back into a flat backpack sized disk (backpack included).

As for the signature in the image, the magic of photoshop CS2's healing brush could remove that with almost no effort.
I agree that a small size makes the image almost usless.

Re: signature. I can remove that signature at any time. That is not on the original photo. Just the posted version.

Re: blind. That is a very cool looking blind but I think what I need is something up in the trees. I am thinking of building a tree blind of some kind. Both sides of our property have very tall oak trees and the birds tend to hang out near the tops. I have plenty of photos of bird bottoms but it would be nice to get more from their level.

Peter meant that it would be easy for *him* (and pretty much anyone with photoshop) to remove the signature. In other words, it isn't really going to deter thieves.

Oh. I get it. No sense trying to protect the photo in someway with a sig if someone can easilly remove it. Gotcha.

Yup, a smallish size and highish compression make it tough to do anything usfull with the images if you are worried about them.

There is also stuff like the embeded digimark watermarks, I haven't explored using their service yet though.
http://www.digimarc.com/

I guess if I ever get to the point where people WANT to steal my photos, I'll feel like I've gotten somewhere. Then I'll worry about a signature.