Photographing birds at a feeder in the rain

We just love watching the birds at a feeder on our deck each day.  Of course we have to chase away some of the squirrels. 

I was wanting to shoot some photos and it was raining--then I thought let me show you how to do this in the rain.

We enjoy our bird feeder and the birds that visit us.

By using a flash I can somewhat capture the bird in flight.  Actually I startled the bird with the flashes.

Here is the simple setup.  I did this while it was raining and so I covered the flashes with zip lock bags to keep them dry.

Since it was raining it was darker than normal and the flashes helped light up the birds but the background disappears.

I decided to put one flash pointing to the background (see setup below) to help keep the background from disappearing.  However the birds had stopped for a while visiting when I was doing this.

The Nikon SB900 flash to the far right is set on 200mm zoom.  This helps put the light on the distant trees.  The light to the right is lighting the bird feeder and any birds.