Gerund and present participle

[TadasN]

Hello,

I wonder if I am using gerund and present participle correctly to form a subject. Please take a look at the sentence:

Photographing a bird sitting next to other little wild wonders while showing the bird's natural environment seemed like an interesting idea to me, so I commenced a hunt for mushrooms and lichens in the same forest where my feeder was situated.

I am not sure if it's technically the subject (well it's more important to me if it's possible to use gerunds and other words in this way), but the phrase in bold answers to the question "What did seem like an interesting idea?" at least.

Photographing - it's simply a gerund used as a subject
sitting - I have omitted "which is"
showing - used in another construction that, I think, is correct when written before the main clause at least.

So, it's a pretty complicated sentence and I would be grateful if you could tell me whether I used all this correctly. The sentence sounds OK to me somehow, but, since I'm just an English learner and can't find the rules to prove the sentence is correct, now I have little hope that I have written it correctly. Thank you very much in advance.

[5jj]

Photographing - it's simply a gerund used as a subject
sitting - I have omitted "which is"
showing - used in another construction that, I think, is correct when written before the main clause at least.

The sentence is grammatically correct.

'little wild wonders' sounds unnatural to me; I would say, "other little/small wonders of nature'. I prefer 'began' to 'commenced', but that's just a personal thing.