After yesterday’s relatively quiet day, we had planned a day at home as those weather prognosticators were falling over themselves combing their various thesauri for even more gigantic, huge, colossal, mammoth, immense, tremendous, immeasurable, Brobdingnagian(Ye of Gulliver’s Travels will understand),  humongous, astronomic, ginormous words to describe what was to be a weather of mass destruction, headed our way, so we had decided that it would be a doonah day, and we’d sleep through it all.  The patter of rain on the roof and window shutters seemed for once to confirm their cosmic, epic, giant, stupendous, mega predictions.

However as I peeked out from under the protective, shielding, defensive, safety, preventive, insulating, warmth of the doonah, what was it I spied coming in under the window shutters.
Gasp, horror, elation, joy, disbelief.  Was that sunshine.
No prizes Sherlock. It was sunshine.

In quick succession t’was breakfast, pack cameras, (I think there should be a get dressed in there somewhere) pack a thermos of Green Tea, (I’m off the Grey of Earl at present), tuck in the Drizabone Jacket, and head to the Office.  Also we beat the Mother’s School run, so the roads were fairly, rather, a little, slightly, comparatively, after a fashion, reasonably, kind of, sort of ish, quiet.

But the wind across the carpark sang a different tune. Large gusts, of huge, colossal, mammoth, immense, tremendous…. you get the picture… winds that made even the Drizabone Jacket feel a bit challenged.

And what was that on the fence line up the track!

Getting a Flame Robin’s confidence is both art and something akin to magic. Epecially at the beginning of the season, as they’ve flown perhaps 200 km to get here another 50m down the fence line is not a challenge. And secondly I’m convinced that they need to cover the territory to map out the best food sites for the season and of course the best roosting places.

So it is usually later in the season when they have had time to settle that they allow anything like close approaches, and almost always by coming into my space, at their own pace and pleasure.

I occasionally get called on some Flickr sites that the the ‘hand of man’ is evident in many of the Office shots.  And rightly so.  After all, there is not a single tree for miles out there, and no  self respecting Robin wants to spend all of its day on the ground like a turtle. So they make great use of the fences.  So sneaking up on them is akin to drawing close to a Swamp Harrier.  Impossible.

The top track line runs along the edge of the river cliffs, so once we’ve established where they are working sitting in, near, or on, the cliff line or against a fence post gives the birds a chance to ‘map’ us and as long as we stay in the ‘map’ location, we are seen as no danger, and they just continue to hunt around, near, close by, in the neighborhood, at close quarters, within spitting distance, a hop, skip and jump, or not far away.

Three hours, and two cuppas later, the turn on the weather saw large sheets of dark grey rain heading our way across the paddocks.  In next to no time we were back at the car, just as the prognoticators gleeful taunts came to reality in large drops pelting across the track on the way home.

Enjoy. We did.

This boy looks like Mr Coopertop one of the brothers from my Woodlands days.

When they get this close who said photography is hard?

This boy seems to be much richer in colour

Time for a portrait. Perhaps the short red waist coat is from a younger bird?

 

As usual the females, although not where as rich in brillant colour make up for it is subtle harmonous tones

Soft sunshine peeking through adds to the richness of the tones

Bold is

Did I metion it was windy, very windy, oh, yes

Not pin sharp, but he did tell me he was leaving

 

Good to be able to get a couple in frame together.  Again this bird was able to indicate it was leaving.

Catch of the day. One spider less

Studio Portrait work.