David Jenkins

Little Visits: The Flight of the Brolga

May 19, 2021May 19, 2021Posted in Brolga, Little Visits, Western Treatment Plant, WTPTagged Brolga, Western Treatment Plant8 Comments

I was going solo at the Western Treatment Plant. #kneetoo was tucked up in her wide view bird-hide at the hospital, and as the sun was shining in a clear blue sky, I thought a quick trip to check to see if any Flame Robins could be making the most of the weather and the paddocks at the Plant.

However after a bit of fruitless searching it was obviously not going to be my day for robins.

A final quick trip around the “T Section” area just in case a Brown Falcon or two might be present and then home was my plan.

As I unlocked the entry gate to the area, I heard the long rasping call away off in the distance of Brolga. A scan around the horizon and it was not likely I’d spot any as the calls had been a long way off, and had now stopped.

I prepared to shut the gate and another birdo was approaching to go out, so I held the gate open and said I’d lock it as they left. Then, just as I swung the gate across the road, that rasping cry filled the air, and this time I’d id’d the location. Sure enough in the air were three Brolga. Then as the shapes grew more distinct, it was likely that they were not only coming in my direction, but would perhaps make a pretty close pass by.

Locking the gate, I grabbed the camera and hoped that the pass would be on the sunny side of iAmGrey.

The more I watched, the more I became aware they would be using the roadway behind me as sort of navigation aid, and would pass right over the top of me.

And they did.

They disappeared behind one of the bunds, and I wondered where they had ended up.

Satisfied with the fly by, I went on to look along the roadways. Time for a cuppa, so I pulled up at one of the cross tracks and pulled out the doings.

Then the croaking call rattled over the ponds and I looked a bit further along the track and the pair were in head stretch calling mode, and engaging in a little pair bonding. Cuppa forgotten, I moved along the track for a better looksee.

They settled down to some preening and feeding and the juvenile with them was feeding in one of the shallow ponds.

I went back for my Cuppa and sat and watched until they moved off the pondage and up on to the track, and moved further along to continue their morning routine.

Satisfied, I packed up and headed off for a visit with the patient.

Enjoy

Saturday Evening Post #134 : View from the Birdhide Window

May 15, 2021May 19, 2021Posted in Uncategorized15 Comments

Medical Update #1

#kneetoo has been for surgery and after several days of recovery and learning to walk again, I had the good fortune to collect her this morning.

85 steps before breakfast, the physio said. So how does 90 sound. 🙂
20 more steps per day, means 140 more per week, which equates in one of those logarithmic graphs to a 1000 in just a week or two, and then 5000, and well you get the idea, #kneetoo will be back in the field before I can recharge the camera batteries. 🙂

Seriously, but. Lots of work to do, crutches, walking frame (thankfully Dolly the Trolley has been waiting for this moment) heaps of physio work—coincidentally many of them looking like Tai Chi moves. I’ve got to do this… Oh, I said you mean “Part Wild horses Mane”.

I’m not one that is much into blood and gore, so most of the medical stuff gets by me. I go into panic on a paper cut, a slip the kitchen knife is enough for me to sit down for awhile. So most of Mr Slice’n’Dice’s handiwork is not something I’m going to pursue. However I am fascinated by the mechanical process of the production of the replacement knee joint. And more particularly how the robotic process results in such a precision job. The attachment joints are something that my old woodwork teacher could have only dreamed about.

Here’s what #kneetoo’s looks like.

Her suite at St Vincent’s In Werribee overlooked Hoppers Lane. David Nice’s patch. A large window gave her a grand view of the roadway, and traffic and more importantly the gardens and trees on the Uni Campus across the road. (PS you can just make out the trees over the road in the xray shot, as I took it against the window)
So, in her secure Birdhide window, I’d get daily reports.
What the local pair of magpies have been doing, where they are feeding and roosting. How the local Willie Wagtails and Magpie Larks were in regular dispute over feeding rights. The three young Hobbies that flew past. And the numbers of Purple-crowned Lorikeets feeding among the flowing gums. Perhaps I should have taken her in a camera.

So thanks to everyone for their kind words and support. We both really appreciate it all.

While #kneetoo was in ‘confinement’, I took the opportunity of a sunny morning for a quick run to the Western Treatment Plant. Mostly I wanted to see if the Flame Robins had turned up in any numbers.

As I rounded a corner, I saw a Brown Falcon on a tree ahead, slowed and although I knew the bird was too far away, I slipped around iAmGrey to get a better look.
To my surprise her mate, (bit of guess work there), was sitting on a stump, among the grasses and shrubs. And the light was just about right. No doubt the birds was sitting out of the breeze warming up in the bright morning sunshine. The beautiful rich white chest was on good display.

This is not a bird that I have worked with before, so had no idea what it would do. He(?) sat for awhile, but it was obvious that my presence made him uncomfortable and I wasn’t going to move any close or to a better angle. I’d worked out his flight path would be down and away from me, so I’d only get one chance at a flight shot. However, he beat me, dropping from the stump, and not wing spreading till he could glide behind one of the bushes.
So I retreated. Happy to have made the acquaintance, and hoping that a return visit will be a closer experience.

A Little Visit: Stop Picking on Me!

May 12, 2021Posted in Black Swan, Little Pied CormorantTagged Black Swan, Little PIed Cormorant, Little Visits8 Comments

At the Point Cook Coastal Park, there is pair of Black Swans that are always together, and almost always distinguishable from others in the area because of their behaviour together.

I was casually watching them, as they don’t do much really, just swan about together.
When on a sudden one of them arched up from the middle and sort of jumped up out of the water. Curious, but it quickly settled down again.
A few seconds later it did the same thing, and then a Little Pied Cormorant popped up out of the water along side it. The swan took a swing at the cormorant and it quickly submerged.

Then, the swan arched up again, and I figured out the cormorant must have been hitting or poking it underneath.
This time it was a bit too much for the swan, and it gave chase to the cormorant. And again it submerged and the swan gave another start, and the process repeated.

Perhaps the cormorant was gaining some underwater advantage from the bulk of the swan, or perhaps their movement stirred up the waters and the creatures.

Eventually tiring of it all the cormorant swam off, while the pair of swans went back to ‘swanning about’.

Enjoy

Saturday Evening Post #133 :Bell Like

May 8, 2021May 9, 2021Posted in Saturday Evening PostTagged Saturday Evening Post8 Comments

I had the opportunity the other day to go to a presentation by an acquaintance, (not a close friend). It was among her first out-in-the-open, in front of people, speaking assignments.

It has been said that if asked to speak in front of people, over 70% will say, “No, not me, I’d die if I had to speak in public.” I once saw that equated to the fact that at a funeral 7 out of 10 would rather be IN the coffin than, delivering the Eulogy. 🙂

With the inevitable, pauses, loss of thought chain, mixed up notes, nervous hair rearranging and the odd apology, she kept going and the ‘ordeal’ was over.
And do you know what? She’ll get better.
In a couple of years, should she have to speak to the same group, it will be a fully polished professional presentation. Full of confidence, because apart from the learning, she believes in the topic at hand. So much that the struggles will be forgotten—not erased, just no longer daunting. The one thing we took away was her sincerity.

It has also been said, and attributed to several sources, that

“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear”,

Some sources wrongly attributing Lao Tzu in the Tao Te Ching add.

“When the student is Fully ready, the teacher will disappear.’

And so for my new-speaking friend, the struggle to hold an audience will disappear and the message will be bright, clear and unhindered. How cool is that.

As I sat listening, I was drawn to the idea that no matter the art form, and photography is one such form, we want to uncover the techniques, the knowledge, and the craft, that will best resonate with our vision.
So we search.

And our experiences strike us, (as Deng Ming Dao says, “… like a stick hitting a bell and we learn about ourselves.”), like an experiment. Education comes from the results of that experiment.

With so many creative photographic possibilities, it’s always an adventure behind the camera. Each experiment holds a chance to hear the clear ring of the bell.

Keep takin’ pictures. We do.

From the Field Notes: So Near, Yet… So Far

May 5, 2021Posted in Great Crested GrebeTagged Great Crested Grebe7 Comments

No doubt we all have a few photo goals that always seem to be just out there beyond reach.

One for me, and it will never be achieved is to photograph the great white horses of the Camargue, in France

Another would be a week or more with the awesome richly coloured Brahminy Kites, from a high clifftop area. I might yet make this one.

And yet another is to capture Great Crested Grebe and their ‘reed dance’. We have at the Jawbone Reserve two pairs at present, and they have had several good nestings so far this season. However the luck of the dance, is it’s just a bit too far from home for me to spend more than an occasional visit, so the chances are somewhat diminished.
Mr An Onymous and I had taken #kneetoo for a visit there one early morning as treat before she goes to visit Mr Slice-n-Dice next week.

I featured the young from their most recent hatching in the previous post, so we did have a good visit.
Time to go as #kneetoo was feeling the pain.

When on a sudden, from way down the lake one of the pair came swimming down to meet its mate. Both immediately dropped their heads to the water in a greeting and turned toward each other.
Then the head crest and facial mask outstretched, so it was more than a casual greeting they were a bit more than pleased to see each other.

The closer they approached the more the crest and masked displayed and finally they were alongside one another and swayed and turned in unison, like a pair of ballerinas.
I held my breath.
They may being going to dance!!

More head waving, calling and circling.
Then, to my dismay, the crests dropped, the facial mask retracted, they turned about, and slowly swam away together into the reeds.

Opportunity over. Near. But… So Far.
Perhaps next time.

If you are interested in the craft of photographing Great Crested Grebes, I normally don’t do video plugs for Youtube, but Mike Lane is an exception. (he is 89 years old for a starter), and he offers some fine techniques that can be applied to working with other water birds.
Enjoy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBzBXuvnv9Q

Saturday Evening Post #132 : The Great Romance

May 1, 2021Posted in Flame Robin, Saturday Evening PostTagged Flame Robin, Saturday Evening Post6 Comments

If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.
Attributed to Albert Einstein

Writers rely on keeping a notebook. It gets filled with story or article ideas, and scraps of ideas. Artists keep a notebook filled with small detail sketches, ideas for design and musings. Musicians also have a book in which words for songs, riffs and other musical factoids wait to be turned into the next great composition.

Photographers that I trained with keep, “Day Books”. A detailed set of instructions of how to light a subject, names and addresses, snippets of an idea for the next shoot, calculations of various lens/aperture combos.

I used to have, (somehow lost in all the transitions) the last day book of one of my mentors, (Probably one of the best Black and White printers of his day—Well at least I thought so).

All sorts of goodies were in there, here’s one “Bellows Extension Factors” :-). How much chemical to put in a certain developing solution. Bring home 2 bananas, a loaf of bread and a jar of plum jam, etc. You get the drift.

We also take a photo, move angle, subject, lighting, come back another day, all part of the collecting of visual notes. Sifting through those ideas surely has helped to prepare for the right moment.

A photographer who published 15 years of his day books is Edward Weston. Too expensive to own, and I’ve only ever seen one volume, in a library. Here is a site that shows some of his work. Caution there are some quite explicit images among them. Edward Weston Gallery

These days as a blogger, I keep notes all over the place. Some electronic, clipped from web pages, snapped out of books, handwritten in a note app. Also still use the old standard, Moleskine A5 book, and somewhere a Spirax wire bound student book. And the odd stickit note or two.

Here’s a couple that struck me the past week or so.

Vision: As photographers we are image seekers, and taking that view, life becomes one great romance, an amazing opportunity and journey to see marvellous things all the time.

Expectation: I go out expecting to see greater things, find new opportunities for visuals and experience fortuitous moments. It should bring a freshness and zest to my times behind the camera.

And so it was that #kneetoo and I found ourselves in the sunshine with a family of recently arrived Flame Robins at the Point Cook Coastal Park.

This busy young lady was hunting off the fence line. The birds at Point Cook, as at the Office, use the fence lines as there is little available perching space otherwise. This is open grasslands. Shrubs and bushes are non-existent. And the good people of Parks Vic have kindly mown the grassy verges around the fences providing an ideal hunting area for the robins. Not wonder they love it.

She jumped onto the post, and it struck me to move a little further along the fence and use a distant pine tree as a rich dark backdrop, and then I spotted the highlight of sky between the branches.

Looking for such visual occurrences, is indeed a great romance.

Enjoy

From the Field Notes: Grebeing

April 29, 2021Posted in Field Notes, Great Crested GrebeTagged Field Notes, Great Crested Grebe6 Comments

It’s hard to ignore the call of a warm sunny morning, one with little wind, and the chance of fog on the water.

Conference between, #kneetoo, Mr An Onymous, and I, and the location of choice was Jawbone Reserve and the bird of interest, Great Crested Grebe.

Not that we expected to see the parents doting on the young as they have been out for a couple of weeks, and would be able to fend for themselves.

And the usual spots were the young had been last seen revealed no grebes at all.
So it was a walk about the tracks looking in some of the other ponds, and doing our best not to be an annoyance to, and being run over by, speeding local cyclists.

Then far out on one of the larger ponds, among a gaggle (?) of ducks and assorted coots, Mr A spotted two young grebes, heads all tucked in keeping warm in the sunshine.

We waited and just as well, as not so long after they began their morning duties of cleaning, preening and looking about. One of the adults was not too far away keeping a ‘weather’ eye on them.

Around a corner paddling remarkably fast came ‘Motor’ Grebe with a big wash ahead of its chest.
It stopped closer to where we were and began to hunt, and quickly showed how adept they had become in just a few weeks.

The other two paddled over to see if they too could get in the action.

Way down the pond, the second adult made an appearance and the two adults swam toward one another, but. That is for another page in the book.

An interesting fact(oid) is the birds were nearly hunted to extinction in the 1800s as the feathers were used for hats (ladies),and the Royal Society for the Preservation of Birds was set up to protect them.
Cocker, Mark; Mabey, Richard (2005). Birds Britannica. London: Chatto and Windus. pp. 6–7. ISBN 978-0-7011-6907-7.

Enjoy

Much of the baby feather is going and the markings are changing. Not bad for only a month out of the egg.

The head feathers are beginning to show the development of that famous Crested headdress

Wing stretch of the well developed wings. They usually fly at about 10 weeks from hatching.

Saturday Evening Post #131 : Laughter

April 24, 2021Posted in Saturday Evening PostTagged Saturday Evening Post7 Comments

Sometimes I ponder the direction of the Saturday Night Posts, and worry that I start to sound like some out of context guru who can hand out unhelpful, if not misleading, platitudes.

It is like, at least to me, that I’m developing a creed of not believing in laughter. Yet we live in a world of constant change; seasons, food preferences, political landscapes, health and friends. And so many others for such a long list.

I used to write with a pencil, then a ballpoint, and a pen.(actually at school we used nibs and ink, but really those scratchings don’t qualify), now a lightweight untethered keyboard sits on my lap as my fingers fly over the keys. (mostly the backspace one for corrections, but hopefully I puck erer plikc or pick up most of them. 🙂

Part of those changes at a personal level is my own photography. Equipment, processes and styles rotate about, some lead down rabbitholes into a wonderland, sometime the rabbithole hits a large old rock or root and ends.

So I hope that it all doesn’t become to staid, and too predictable and too serious.

#kneetoo and I, had been walking in the Eynesbury forest and due to concerns of her aforementioned knee we had kept our perambulations to just a few short distances.

It was time to go home, and as we approached the park exit, we thought one quick look down a bush track might take us into Jacky Winter territory.
So, we went.

Just for a few minutes, mind.

At one of Jacky’s known haunts, we stopped and looked and listened, no familiar “Peter, peter peter” calls from the area. “Oh”, she says, “let’s go up to the next track bend.”

We went. Quiet as. Not content we moved further down the track to the next, and then the next and finally turned a corner about a kilometre from where we started.

Way up head she noted the flash of white feather on grey wing, and so we set off.

Jacky and Jacky were working on insects on the trackline. A simple process for them. Start on one main branch, fly out grab an insect and land on the a branch on the other side of the track. Makes for great photos of these beautiful little birds sitting tummy down as they usually do. Then they would reverse the process and flit to the first branch, and then back again.

I decided for the ‘inflight’ Jacky shot.

Missed the first few completely. Set up the focus to grab Jacky as it launched, and hopefully the focus would be in the right spot.
Try again. Great shot of the forest behind, but no bird. 🙂
Now it’s been said, practice makes perfect. Or as the ‘positive thinking’ gurus say, Perfect practice make perfect.

Jacky seemed content to let me try again, and eventually I managed a bird at the very edge of the frame.
I think Jacky saw my satisfaction while ‘chimping’ the result, and with a quick scolding ‘Peter’, for goodbye, the pair flew off into the forest.

#kneetoo and I made our way back to IamGrey and home.

An encounter with this most amiable little birds is never permanent, but an ephemeral moment.

As Deng Ming-Doa writes, ” As we laugh at the world, we should realise that understanding the changeable nature of life (and the universe) is the swiftest way to joy.”

Enjoy the richness of your next laughter.

Saturday Evening Post #130 : Renewal

April 17, 2021April 17, 2021Posted in Uncategorized7 Comments

Now that daylight saving has finished for the summer, my early morning pre-breakfast walks are no longer in the darkness of pre-dawn.

Lots of trees, the bends in the creek, and other shapes that I passed in the darkness, now have detail, colour, and form.

The brilliance of the sparkling stars against their velvet cushion is replaced by soft warm (in kelvin temp) light melding over the scene. Just the brightest of the stars lingers in eye-sight for the first few minutes.
The warm of the air in the summer mornings is now a crisp autumn bracing tinge but not yet the biting cold of a frosty morning.

Well, at least most days when it’s not overcast and grey all round. 😦

The interesting thing about a change of season is the renewal.
The ancients explained it best by the comings and goings of the mystical Persephone.
She was the daughter of Demeter, goddess of the harvest. Persephone was kidnapped by that (evil master of darkness) Hades.
Every autumn Persephone returned to her underworld home, taking with her life giving power of seed, and so the ground was barren over the winter months. Then, come spring, “She’s Back” and with her the richness of the spring growth.

All very good for the ancients, but it did provide a good explanation, if somewhat coloured with fantasy of the changes of the seasons.

For us as bird photographers, it often feels like Hades has been at work.
The waders are heading for Siberia, the local Snipe have gone, ready for their ocean hop to Japan, and most bushbirds have finalised their nesting and are settling into winter territories.

We wait for the arrival of the winter flocks and hope to see bright rich red sitting on the fences soon.

Mr An Onymous gave me the heads-up that Flame Robin females were at the 100 Steps park, so we will hopefully this year be able to catch a few sightings.

Winter may in its way bring cold and shorter days, but it also brings renewal as the birds, and the plants have a time to rest up, ready for Persephone to make her re-appearance.

For extra bonus points:
The Degraves Flour mill that used to occupy the Degraves Street location in the heart of Melbourne CBD still has the Degraves family statue of Demeter perched high atop the building.
Here is a clip from Google Maps Street view showing her benevolent oversight of the growth of the city.

(I used to work in that building in another time in the universe)

Little Visits: When I Grow up I want to be a Black-shouldered Kite

April 15, 2021April 17, 2021Posted in Little Visits, Sacred KingfisherTagged Little Visits, Sacred Kingfisher9 Comments

Ha! Kids today have such ambitions.

For the queasy of stomach, time to click away.

This is just about straight out of the “Ripley’s Believe it or Not!” archives.

It was a cold wet morning. However #kneetoo was keen to see how the little Kingfishers were progressing, and we only had a narrow space in the ‘very busy’ diary.

Knowing they had been on the wing for several days, our probability of anything other than a chance encounter were slim to say the least.

Nothing around the now abandoned nest site, nor by the old blackened stump training ground.

I managed a sighting of a small blue blur in the forest and headed over for a looksee. And sure enough a young one perched among the branches of a black wattle.

Then with no warning, an adult turned up with quite a large bundle. And at first it was difficult to make out. Not a large skink or beetle.
Are they really legs, or is it a fish tail I could see?

Then she flipped it about in the air and it was a mouse! No way!

At first the young one didn’t seem all that interested, but after a few more flips and attempts to turn it round so the small end would go down first the adult presented it to the young one.

Now on an aside, your average field-mouse is around 20gm. Your average grown Sacred Kingfisher might come in a touch over 30gm. So I’m guessing the little dude was at best, 25gm.
UPDATED: HANZAB give the bird a weight of 55g which would be a more reliable weight I think. Still give the little dude 35gm and it’s going to be a 55gm tubby blue blob for awhile. 🙂

It took the mouse head first, not headfirst, even that suits. 🙂

And so began a 10-15 minute battle for the young one to eventually ingest the mouse.
On quite a number of occasions, it had to stop, and I guess catch its breath, or simply rearrange the internal spaces to make space.

A couple of times it began swaying back and forth on the branch, and I feared it was going to choke and fall off the branch. Not much in my skill set for resuscitating a downed Kingfisher.

And slowly—very slowly—the mouse began to disappear.

After it was all over, a tubby little kingfisher gave a few shakes of its body, to rearrange all the feathers and no doubt the internals, and then sat. More likely squatted.

A few minutes quietly sitting to let the digestion process begin, and a tubby blue blur sped off through the forest.

Where is Ripley when you need him?

Saturday Evening Post #129: Finding Expression

April 10, 2021April 10, 2021Posted in Saturday Evening PostTagged Saturday Evening Post11 Comments

Deng Ming Tao asks an interesting question in an article entitled “Angles”.

It is worth considering, he asks, what does it take to make an angle?

You can make a table from a plank of wood, on two upright slabs. It might even look like Stonehenge. Yet, while the stones have stood the test of time, three loosely arranged planks would most likely topple.

A table manufactured by a craftsperson, is a joy to behold. Each piece in place, each piece supporting the whole, and each, a small work of art in its own right. The table is a greater because of the strength of all the small parts.

“To put things together and then hold them in proper angle is one of the miracles of skill.”

Over the years, my own photography has been that sort of journey. Each new skill learned has lead to an expression of a subject in a harmonious balanced way. And please don’t get confused that I’m talking about some compositional rule.
Each subject requires the tensions of the ‘angles’ to be suitable to best express the mood, emotion, feel and vision.

Like so many pursuits, photography has lead me on a voyage across wonderful waters. But there always comes, as a sailor says, the time when it’s no longer the right thing to hug the shoreline, but rather to unfurl the sails and head out into the wider ocean.

Not all is plain sailing, to continue the analogy, but securing the angles with knowledge, skill, experience and dogged determination, will result in photographs that carry within them a little of the photographer’s vision. Built, like a finely crafted table, on our aspirations.

#kneetoo, and I were on the road outside the Treatment Plant. Early morning light, and as we drove along looking in each paddock, we missed the Hobby sitting on a post. Then as we drove by, I noticed it. Too late to stop.

Down the road 100 m, and turn around. Then drive leisurely back as if we still hadn’t noticed it.
The birds in the area are very familiar with passing vehicle traffic.
It passes.
They barely blink.

Passed without any problem, and then to park off the road, the bird was on #kneetoo’s window side. She was happy.

I slipped out of the door, and edged along the top of IamGrey.
The bird was still unperturbed.

A large truck came around a corner and down the road toward us. The bird waited. Took notice of the oncoming vehicle. Did some Hobby calculation about the speed of the approach, our position on the roadside, and concluded perhaps that there wasn’t going to be enough room for all three of us.

A quick unfold of the wings. It was gone.

Enjoy

Little Visits: They’ve Flown

April 7, 2021Posted in Sacred KingfisherTagged Sacred Kingfisher9 Comments

For several previous days, it was apparent that the young Kingfishers were getting ready to fly. Interestingly, they are pretty much fully developed when they fly, and while the parents still top them up with food, they appear to have some hunting ability for easy to find prey

#kneeetoo, and I arrived early one morning and waited for the usual food supply activity. After a bit of time had passed, it was obvious that something had changed. A further hunt around the nest area, and following the adults, we soon found, the first of the flown young. It’s plaintive cry for food was taken care of by both the adults, and just occasionally would one venture to the nest opening and deposit a top up snack, so, a second one was still nest bound.

The following day, it too had broken free from the nest and we found them moving about the forest with ease.
A tree had caught fire a few days before and the local fire and park people had cleaned up the mess, and cut down the old red-gum tree, as the fire had eaten through the inside. So there was a lot of downed timber as well as cleared spaces, and the young Kingfishers were taken there by the adults to sharpen their hunting skills.
It was a bonus for your photographers as the venerable old gum had supplied some fine landing spaces for the Kingfishers and some of the larger trunk pieces a good place to sit and watch the activity.
As the morning went on, the young became engrossed in being fed, and learning to feed themselves and completely ignored out presence, often landing only an arm’s reach or so away. Sometimes too close for the lens to gain focus.

In the end, a mid-morning rain brought closure for our efforts and the young took off to find some shelter.

Saturday Evening Post #128 : White-bellied Sea-Eagle

April 3, 2021Posted in Saturday Evening Post, White-bellied Sea-eagle8 Comments

From our recent early morning trip to the Western Treatment Plant.

The Plant holds many great photo opportunities for such a wide range of birds, but probably the highlight for us, other than a rare species, is the White-bellied Sea-Eagle.
They don’t seem to claim the area for roosting or breeding, but rather it’s an opportune smorgasbord for the picking.

It is not highly unusual to see them, but most times they are just too far away for great photography. And give up on the idea of ‘sneaking’ up on one.

So a conversation starter for the day, as we head into the plant, is, ‘I wonder if we’ll see a Sea-Eagle today?”

As we ventured further into the Plant, at Lake Borrie, one of the busiest ponds, we saw several White-winged Black Terns fly past, and I parked the IamGrey a little further along the track, with good views across the lake, and #kneetoo called, “A Sea-Eagle out on the tree.”
And there was.
How could anyone doubt! It might be a knee, but that doesn’t affect the eyesight it seems. 🙂

The Sea-Eagle was way too far on the other side of the lake for good images, so I decided to walk back up the roadway to where the Terns had been working. However after a few minutes it was obvious that they had moved on.

A Little Grassbird caught my attention in the reeds, when all of a sudden the high pitched call of startled Pink-eared Ducks rolled across the lake.
Conclusion? The Sea-Eagle had taken to wing, and knowing its predisposition for duck-dinner, the Pinkies were not hanging around waiting for an invitation to share a meal.

But, where, I kept peering was the Sea-Eagle? With the sky covered in Pinkies, it took a few moments to pickup the slowly climbing white shape above the alarmed ducks.

I’m often a bit jealous of my seaborne photographers and their work with Sea-Eagles. At least it’s certain where they will be travelling—along the shoreline. Inland birds have all points of the compass to choose from when they fly, and it is almost always away from any photographer.

This bird had a purpose, and I pretty much held my breath as the shape grew larger and larger in the viewfinder, and I realised I was on its flight path and it would run by me on the left. Time to fill up a memory card, so I switched to multi-frame and began to shoot small 3-4 frame bursts.
Still it kept coming.
The early morning light—astute readers will remember form a recent post, “Front Light” —was coming over my shoulder, and all I had to do was keep the bird in the viewfinder and follow along.

Eventually, it was too close, and too large in frame, and went by me on its way to its next appointment.

Little Visits: Kingfisher Feeding

April 1, 2021Posted in Sacred KingfisherTagged Sacred Kingfisher9 Comments

Still continuing with the Kingfisher Nursery.
The young had been hatched about 3 weeks, and were now quite grown. But almost impossible to see as the tree opening had a rather large lump of wood that covered part of the hole, and it was difficult to get a glimpse.

Kingfisher young fly pretty much complete, in that they are capable in a few days of fledging to be self-sufficient. Although the parent birds keep up a good food supply.

Here then is a selection from that last week feeding.

The setup is pretty much as described previously. Main flash high and to the left. Using the Auto FP setting on the Nikon D500 to override the usual problem of working with faster shutter speeds. On Auto FP, the SB910 Flash-units fire multiple times in what seems to be a continuous stream of light from the beginning to end of the exposure so all the sensitive chip receives an equal amount of light without any part ‘blacking’ out. Downside is that the poor old SB’s have to drain the charge, and I can only get two or three frames per in or out flight. Then of course the battery has to recharge the unit, so it’s a few seconds delay. I’m sure that Eric Hosking with his half ton of batteries or Steven Dalton in his studio set up didn’t have that problem 🙂

Enjoy