Author: David Jenkins

Natural History Photographic Essayist

Postcards: Swaning About (as you do)

Posted in Black Swan, Jawbone Conservation ParkTagged , , 5 Comments

My WordPress friend, Ashley, over at Aussiebirder has written a post on “Mindfulness” while bird watching. Resonates quite well I thought with my meanderings on having a love for the bird and the craft.Sometimes we are in such a hurry, or obsessed, to find the next bird, that we overlook the around.

EE, Mr An Onymous and I had gone down to the Jawbone Conservation Reserve to look for, among other things, Great Crested Grebe. And as the day progressed we found both the birds that are down there. Jawbone also has quite a resident collection of Black Swans. One of the main reasons—not being a Swan, how would I know— seems to be that the arm of the sheltered Jawbone pond(s) offers a quiet resting place, perhaps out of the wind.

So while we looked for the best places to photograph said Grebe, the Swans kept us amused by their fluting calls, their preening antics and their airborne mastery and of course their barefoot waterskiing championships.

When I opened up the files in Lightroom (hah!, had to get the plug in, that’s plug in, not plugin), I was just a wee bit excited to find how many interesting moments of these birds that I’d managed during the morning and I wasn’t even trying.  I feel a photobook coming on.

Here are some to set the scene and get you into the ‘moment’.

Enjoy

Heading in from a great height
Synchronised style
Formation landing team
Neck outstretched for aerodynamics
Casually dipping the wing into the water
On touchdown
How easy is barefoot skiing
Splash down and time to fold the wings up
Trimming up for landing
Powering down the waterway
Feather Details
The shape that sings a melody.

Saturday Evening Post #14: Looking Forward, Looking Back

Posted in Saturday Evening PostTagged 6 Comments

Noted Australian country singer Slim Dusty, wrote a song “Looking forward, looking back”.

It is often used at country funerals as one of the tunes played during the service, and if it’s like the funerals I attend when we travel back up to the family acres for such an event, usually accompanied by at least one “Truck Drivin'” song as well.

But no such use here.  “I’ve come a long way down the track”.  Yes, dear reader, its time for the annual introspective, retrospective “How’s the photography going, and whither away in the new year”.

Which is why Looking Forward is going to have a little Looking Back.

After nigh on three years, I’ve finally made a break from Aperture 3. My foto database of preference.  And have, with some trepidation moved to the ‘dark side’, and settled on Lightroom for the management.
Not I can tell you without, a fair degree of angst.  Once bitten… etc. So the past few weeks have been amalgamating all the various photo sets into one large ‘Cataloge’ as Lr calls it.

One of the first advantages, that I had lost after the demise of AP3 was all my images are together at long last.  Need a Black Swan, quick search, there they all are.  Need a series of Black-shouldered Kite, not a problem. How about all the shots from Eynesbury.  All the delights of the best of database search and I have to say that is something I’ll not be looking back on.

Which leads to the post the other day on the best 100 photo quotes.  Did you find any you nodded in agreement with?

Did you work out my second pick?  Well you only had 99 options.
In the end, this one got the next to best.

No. 76  You cannot possibly hit the shutter without leaving a piece of you in the image.Joe Buissink

But, I do have to say that if that had not been there, then  a quote from David DuChemin would have been my next pick. (PS it’s not on the list)
“Focusing a lens is not the same as focussing our attention!”
And that leads me to another quote from David, and the point of the title of our post.

“Make an image that is so compelling, so captivating, that no one is going to notice your technique. If Noise  is all the people see, Noise is the least of your Problems.  In years to come, no one is going to extoll your excellent use of ISO.”

Which segues nicely to the header image, and the preamble
*HaH, told you this was going to be the disjointed annual ramble*

Looking back. While amalgamating the databases earlier this week, I came across the series with the Kestrel chicks from a few years back.
This was shot with a Nikon D200, and a manual focus, yep, you young’uns will have to look that up, manual focus  600mm f/5.6 Nikon lens. Ken Rockwell shows it here.   It still rates as the all time sharpest Nikon lens I’ve owned. (and I’ve owned a few in me time). I still have the TC 301 2x teleconverter in a box.  It made a super tele 1200mm f/11 lens.  With only a minimal loss of sharpness.  Just hard on the old D200 to see the focusing. So I used to have to watch the little ‘green dot’ focus point in the lefthand side of the viewfinder.  Too cool

Quite a backstory with this one. I had overlooked it initially.  Till one day my mentor at the time, one John Harris by name, was looking over a series and said, “What have you seen in this?”.  And as the image was a tad overexposed. Think 2-3 stops, I really hadn’t bothered with it.  “Look at the eye,” say he. “Oh,” says I. Long story short, a trip through Photoshop and things were looking a lot better.  John was suitably impressed enough to make me a super 32 Inch print from it.  And there we go again. Looking Forward.  The old D200 had a respectable resolution of 10megapixel. Yet is was sufficient for a large print. Still graces the wall. It’s ISO was bailing out at about 400ISO. Yet, Noise, handling of the old lens, old raw processing engine, skimpy Photoshop CS(1), and yet all that is left in the dust as what shine through is the expression of the bird.

Today, looking forward, we shoot at 1600ISO and think nothing of going higher. We shoot with D850 or Z7, or Canon 1D X Mark II and lenses that laser speed quick autofocus. Yet, John would not say to me, “Oh, you shot this with… and a setting of…  He’d say, “Look at the eye”.

Do we like new gear, of course we do.  But no one asks a surgeon, “Oh, what scalpel do you use?” as in,— If I buy that scalpel, I too will be a great surgeon.  But the first thing people say casually looking at the pictures, is, “Oh you must have a good camera!!!!”. 🙂

Had a great meal in a restaurant, or at home with a super host/ess.  Dare you to ask, “So, you must have a good frying pan?”

We do it with love. Love of the medium, love of the image, love of the subject, and love of the message to our viewer.

This Kestrel was one of two from that year’s clutch.  Both accepted my presence, and would land, sit, preen, eat on the branches of the old tree, while I sat on a log metres away. When I came into the paddock, they would readily fly toward the tree. Their gracious mother, (We called her Elizabeth), regularly hunted in the ground near my feet.  It’s pretty humbling to be laying in the grass, and have a full-grown Kestrel, ‘plop’ on the ground by my knee, so close I could watch the chest feathers going in and out as she breathed.

All of that magic, moment, meeting of the universe, is here. Distilled into the one photo.  And if technique, ISO and equipment were that important,:
“I’ve come a long way down the track.
Got a long way left to go
Making photos, from what I know

”

Looking Forward, so much to get involved with, so many opportunities to enjoy.
Looking Back, so many great people, views and gear that has got me this far.

Here’s another from the same series, just in case anyone ponders it was a fluke.

 

Casual enough to preen while I sat nearby.
Enjoy, and thanks for struggling to the end.
May your vision of the world around you bring compelling images that reach out to others.

 

Saturday Evening Post #013 Nankeen Night Heron

Posted in Heathdale Glen Orden Wetland, Nankeen Night Heron, Saturday Evening PostTagged , , 7 Comments

Been an interesting week of weather.  Yesterday in the mid 40s C, today just barely made it to 20C  Mind I’m pretty happy with the cooler weather. Then by mid-afternoon, lovely clear blue sky and a coolish breeze. Go figure.

Many of the regulars here are also members on Flickr.  Flickr seems destined to shoot itself in the foot and alienate the very people who have loyally stuck with it over the years. Who can forget the dreadful, Black Page Format, that nearly gave the viewer migraine, but we persevered.
Now it seems the new owners have no notion of the importance that many users—well, at least the ones I follow— place on the smaller sub-communities of likeminded folk who regularly post, comment and enjoy the work of their community groups.  Just like having friends on fb, but actually friends. And being able to meet them in person and travel to places with them makes it all the more interesting.

But the new 1,000 picture limit is going to strain the friendships I feel. Mind the  cost of a Pro account (and unlimited pictures) is only a few cents a day, and not much more than a pub meal night out for two, so it’s not a serious financial burden.
My disappointment with it, is I get nothing new for my extra investment. I don’t want to upload every photo I ever took.  I’m in the process of backing up my entire library as far back as 2004, (the earlier ones are on CD and DVD,  how’s that for old technology.  Some of those were transferred from SCART Tape Drives. (you young’uns will need to ask prof google about that).

I’m using GoodSync. And its all going to a NAS system from Western Digital.  And Goodsync has reliably informed me, that 5,203 hours are needed to move the images over the Gigabit network I’m using. But to be honest, I think the speed is an inherent problem of WD’s cheep NAS hardware/software.
Oh yeah, the point!

Well if I was to upload all those to a Pro Account and then try to search for them and do all the stuff I normally do in a week with my current pics, it might be as much as 3 days between images. Given that my NBN is not exactly scorching the cables to move data about.

So I’m —as they say— a bit ambivalent about Flickr Pro account.  Don’t panic, I’m not abandoning Flickr, just pondering if I can live with the 1,000 image limit. I still want to keep in touch with folk.

Anyways.

We have been working with Latham’s Snipe at the Heathdale Glen Orden wetlands.
The other morning we glimpsed a Nankeen Night Heron, and, well, EE managed a couple of good shots of it inflight.   ‘Nuff said. She’s good like that

We were back yesterday morning, before the heat, and I saw the bird go into a tree.  I had to wade about in the water to get an open shot, but reckon the result was worth the sloshing about in the mud.

Enjoy

Snapshots: Latham’s Snipe—On the Fly

Posted in Heathdale Glen Orden Wetland, Latham's Snipe, UncategorizedTagged , 13 Comments

Didn’t need a degree, (pun intended) in weather forecasting to know that Friday 4 January 2019 was going to be a “Scorcher”. 44 Celesius and that, as my Dad used to say was “in the shade”.  Standing in an open paddock photographing birds, would result in not much more than a badly burned chicken nugget going home.

So.

We had been pondering going to look for Latham’s Snipe at the local Heathdale Glen Orden Wetlands, and because these tricky little dudes mostly feed at night, and roost by day, and they are incredibly alert and super fast in the air, and the most important and possibly only element that we can control is the light.
A bright sunny day gives, plenty of light for fast shutter speeds, and also the best possible AF performance.   So we formulated what can only be considered a ‘cunning plan’.  We would load up the gumbbies and the cameras and get down there very early in the morning.  That way if it was a clear day then we could spend a couple of hours with good light and be on the way out for an early morning coffee-breakfast, just around the corner before the heat became opressive, and overwhelming and ugly.

Alarm goes Off!!!!

Look out window, still dark, but there are no clouds in sky.

EE grabs quick breakfast, and a cuppa to go, and we’re away.

It’s only a few minutes drive and by the time we arrived the sun was well above the roof and tree line around.  Looked good. Except we parked at the wrong end of the ponds for the light, no point in trying to catch them against the light. My Mum’s favourite, “Keep the sun over your left shoulder, dear”, was what was needed. So gumbbies on, we clump clump clumped down the footpath to the other side of the ponds.  And met, out for an early morning walk with his dog, the president of BirdLife Werribee, (Formerly Werribee Wagtails). Morning, Mr Torr, we acknowleged as we walked by.

On to the end of the pond, and a gate leading into a boardwalk, and as I opened the gate for yet another dude with a dog, there behind him was my Flickr mate, David Nice. Morning, David. The wetlands is David’s “Patch” and he was happy to help explain some of the likely spots.  Thanks, you’re a champion.

So we began. Snipe help by letting out a sharp “Yelp” as they take to the air. And that’s it. No second prizes awarded.
The big deal is getting the AF to lock on to the bird at warp speed.
I chose to use the D500, and the 300 PF f/4. No TC attached.  This gives about the best and fastest short of dragging out the big gun pro lenses, like the 300mm f/2.8  Also inspite of my usual, I set multi-burst, and AF to Continuous and selected the Group Focus.  This hopefully picks up the closest subject and well, perhaps Snipe aren’t in its database.  The other big changes, are M for manual and  set the hightest shutter speed I can manage and balance out the ISO around 800. Also I turn “Off” the VR (IS) as I know there is a bit of a lag on focus if the VR is guessing what to do.  Set lens to the limited 3m to ∞. Don’t want it looking for birds that aren’t there a few metres in front of me .

Primed up, with good light, and an open area or two to work in, and we are sniping.

No one said it was easy.

Enjoy.


This is how close they are to the nextdoor neighbours


 

Landing rights with a Minah

Off course it would be a treat to actually find them on the ground and feeding, but I’m working on that.

 

New Year’s Eve

Posted in "Western Treatment Plant", Curlew Sandpiper, Red-necked Avocet, Red-necked Stint, Sharp-tailed SandpiperTagged , , , 4 Comments

-For some reason, I have to say, I’ve never really grasped the concept of the ‘celebration’ of passing from December 31 in one year to 01 January the following year.

I’m not anti party, and a good excuse to indulge in a tad of fun, mirth and frivolity is all good by me.  But, to make such a big deal about one more sleep, well, it just hasn’t firmed up enough to be a conviction. As Thoreau once wrote on another subject, “Moreover, I have tried it fairly, and, strange as it may seem, am satisfied that it does not agree with my constitution”.

So EE and I pondered our options.   Get on the train, got to the city and with hundreds of thousands of other like-minded folk, watch fire works, sing a Scottish song about times and seasons, and then fight for a seat on the train home, and get to bed by 4:00am.
Option 2.  Sit at home to watch it on the telly.
Option 3. Join in the street party celebrations that our neighbourhood party dudes had invited us to.
Option 4. Drink bubbly, eat food, and hopefully stay awake until “the Witching hour” with some people who seem to think a good time must include bubbly.
Option 5. Hang about around a table with some locals, consume way too much alcohol and ‘See which one of us can tell the biggest lies” —Cold Chisel.

Or perhaps, we could pack a picnic, throw in the deckchairs and go look for birds at Outlet 145W in the Treatment Plant.

Done. Why didn’t we think of it earlier.

With a minimum of planning that is the way went.
145W can be a great place for waders as the outflow has created quite a large flat sandy stretch that has room for thousands of waders.

So I came to the conclusion that sitting on a deckchair, listening to the wavelets lapping on the edge of the sand, the waders all chirping in the background and chatting with my very best friend as we watched the sun sink on the horizon, and the waders fly up and down did in fact, “Agree with my consitution”.

I’ve shown inflights from 145W on the blog before, and a couple of summers back, my Flickr mate Lynzwee sat on the same rocks and we used up several batteries and memory cards between us as the birds moved back and forth.

We managed this time to get to the beach right on low tide, and from there a constant stream of waders moved through the area as the tide turned.
Firstly, the little short-legged Red-necked Stints, then as the water rose a few millimetres, the Sharp-tailed Sandpipers and Curlew Sandpipers moved in. The tide came in more, and the next group were Red-necked Avocet.  And a little later the longer-legged Pied Stilts took over.

I sat on the rocks of the outlet, it divides the beach into two. Flat areas either side.  The birds having flown 13,000km to get here for the summer, are not adverse to flying a couple of hundred metres along the beach for better feeding opportunities and fly right by the end of the outflow. Straight into my lens 🙂
Well if it were that easy anyone could do it.

These little dudes put on a turn of speed as they go by, and as they are so close getting them in the viewfinder and keeping them there is a challenge.
But fun.

So while others oohed and ahhed with fireworks, or bubbly, or sang songs, I watched—with my kinderd spirit— a parade of well-travelled birds enjoy the evening light.

Enjoy.

 

Mixed Flock

 

Here’s some Red-necked Stints

 

 

 

Sharp-tailed Sandpipers

 

 

 


 

Curlew Sandpipers

Red-necked Avocets

Saturday Evening Post #012 Bee-eaters

Posted in Uncategorized5 Comments

Ahh, yes, it’s Sunday, don’t adjust you clocks, one of those nights when my bed looked more longingly at me than the keyboard.

And besides, look it’s a nice new day.  Overcast, intermittent rain— I walked early this morning and came home drenched— so its keyboard time again.

One of the main reasons I’ve not prepared earlier was I was wrestling with a new way of making albums that could be linked to Birds as Poetry blog, however like so many things in the blogosphere, the idea and the application are a bit far removed for a simple click.

All this comes of course from the previous week of humming and hahhing around what I’m going to do with the database.  And its beginning to look like I will commit to moving to the “Dark Side of the Force” and take on Lightroom and all its cloud(ed) options.
But, more of that later.

We did a couple of trips to Bee-eater country.  Seems to be many less than in previous years. However we did find enough to fill up a couple of hours. And of course commit to going back again. Sometime, perhaps, if we can fit it in, maybe, who knows.

Had planned at this point to link to an album.  Click Here — See nothing happens, so here are a couple of extras from the morning.
UPDATE: This Link Should Work  beware though its on an Adobe Creative Cloud site. Shades of Rod Serling and “The Twilight Zone”. Insert spooky do do dah do music here. 🙂

The header image is a phone pano of the creek line and if you look really closely you’ll be able to see at least three active nests. (only kiddin’—the nests are there, but the detail is not sufficient.)

Hope to be back on publishing schedule for the new year.
Good luck for 2019, I hope the photo muses bring many fine images to fill your lens(es) this coming year.
Keep the vision, Keep taking photos, we do.

 

 

 

 

 

Saturday Evening Post: #011 Retrospective

Posted in Saturday Evening PostTagged 7 Comments

Interesting to watch the year draw to a close over my photo database for 2018.

Some birds that previously we’ve spent lots of time with are missing.  Red-capped, Flame and Eastern Yellow Robins, Black-shouldered Kites, Some such as Purple-crowned Lorikeets have been a feature.  We are still hopeful of finding nesting Sacred Kingfishers but time, as they say is running out.

The other thing that has been challenging me the past few months is the need to change my DAM software.  Long time readers will know I’ve been committed to Aperture 3 for such a long time, but like wooden wagon wheels, and last night’s pizza, it has all moved on.  The big deal in town of course is Lightroom, and I have to say I just can’t get with the interface. Cluttery and trying to do all things at once, and demanding a straightforward approach, no rating, adjusting, tagging and cropping as Aperture allowed with minimum of fuss.

Which has left me meddling with AP3’s replacement “Photos App”.  And it would work for me, but I have no real control of the output and being the pedantic sort that I am, that is enough for me to not settle. So the search goes on.  But enough of the mundane.

Flickr of course is another of my major outputs, and at the moment it too is in the throes of change.  So how that will impact my needs, and of those folk that I regularly follow will also be work in progress for 2019.  Then there is everybody’s favourite Facebook or Instagram.  The first bores me, the second seems to treat images as adjunct to a post, and I really like to have the image as the Champion of the moment.

Here is an Eastern Yellow Robin, got all excited out at Eynesbury a few weeks back when we found the pair, and they were nurturing a couple of young birds.  But, we didn’t have time to build up a context  or relationship for them, and so like always, they are now impossible to relocate.  Been that sort of a year.

Hope your own planning for you vision of the birdlife in your life is progressing to the new year.   It should be exciting however it goes.

Good luck, and may the new year bring wonderful subjects to your lens.

 

Snapshots: Freckled Duck Antics

Posted in EynesburyTagged , 3 Comments

Had to wrestle with the title.  After all the majority of Freckled Ducks I’ve ever seen have been asleep on the bank or on logs.  No swimming about for these ducks.  Sleeping is their number one activity. And I suspect they have turned it into an art form.

At Eynesbury there is a small clan of Freckled Duck and they seem pretty content with the area and are to be found most days we travel out there.
We were coming back to the vehicle after spending an afternoon with the nesting Jacky Winter and had stopped at a table by the dam for a quick cuppa before the trip home.

Which is when for some Duck Reason, the Freckled all sailed off the little island were they had been preening or snoozing and came by for a quick swim about. Didn’t take us long to replace the cuppa with the camera and here are a few of the more exciting moments.

 

 

 

There is always time to declare territory or pecking order

 

Just perhaps in this case the victim turned out to be the victor

 

 

Out of my way, or I’ll peck your tail!

 

1812-10_DWJ_8572
This is the first time I can recall seeing the wings outspread

 

A little water bath and a good wing stretch. Time for a nap

Enjoy, We did

Eynesbury Gems: Take #3

Posted in Birdsaspoetry, Black Kite, Dusky Woodswallows, Eynesbury, Jacky WinterTagged , , , 6 Comments

Been pondering anew, my approach to Bird Photography, again.  Yes dear reader, tis that time of year again for tinsel, things red and white, muzak that dumbs the mind at the shopping centre and of course my annual “where is my photography going to bend in 2019”. But

Fear not, this is not that blog.
Great gasps of relaxation and sighs of relief heard across the ‘blogosphere’.

 

I really wanted to get the remainder of the shots from our Eynesbury excursions, (incursions?) out.

So rather than belabour, here is the best of the rest sort of feature.
There is still one more chapter to put up, but I’m going to do that as a Snapshots type blog as it concerns our favourite Jackys and their now well fledged young.  Might even get that done the next few days.

Here tis.

After about 20 attempts this is as good as it got. A Tree Martin flying in with food for the young. I think that Tree Martins have multiple families at nest inside the hollows.

 

A very young Black Kite. We sat with the young bird for several hours over three days, but didnot see the adults come to the nest.
However there was a constant overflying as they kept check on the young one for above.

 

Another from the Black Kite at Play series

 

Another from the Black Kite at Play series. It is coming out of a turn and heading into the wind using all the speed it gained on the run with the wind

 

Black-faced Cuckooshrike

 

Overenthusiastic young one just about unperches the adult. I love the look on the adutls face.

 

This looks like family fun, however food is involved and when the adult arrived to feed the lower bird, the upper one flew in. Then to get in a better position to be fed, it ‘stepped’ over its rival.
The adult sovled the problem by flying off the end of the branch, circling and landing nearer the lower bird. It’s not always the loudest and largest beak that gets filled.

 

Little Eagle. Eynesbury has a resident pair of Little Eagle. I suspect, from the calls, that there is a nest located on the western side of the forest, but have to say I’ve been out of luck locating it.

 

And of course Jacky Winter

Watching Jacky feed is quite interesting. The young don’t cry out for food. Most times they don’t even respond to Mum or Dad arriving. Then there must be a quiet call, and they quickly pop up, the food is delivered and they both settle straight down. It’s also not unusual for the adult to spend a few minutes alongside the nest making sure all is well before flying off.

 

Saturday Evening Post #010 Gone at the Speed of Light

Posted in Heathdale Glen Orden Wetland, Latham's SnipeTagged , 6 Comments

Latham’s (or Japanese) Snipe.

Not a bird I have to say that I’ve spent much time pursing. Given they are a skulking creature around wetlands and the only real time I’ve ever seen them is when someone flushes from a “Snipe Count Day”.  And from that I learned they go fast.

Fascinating creatures that have the ability to hop from northern Japan to southern Australia in less than a week. There is an apocryphal story I can’t track down tonight of one, fitted with a satellite tracker that may have achieved the journey in three days.  And just before you reach for the pocket calculator or uncle google, that is about 7,000km.

There are a number of sites on the web about the research projects and this one seem among the best.

https://lathamssnipeproject.wordpress.com/

In a wetlands in the very heart of Werribee township, at the Heathdale Glen Orden wetlands to be precise, a number of Snipe have taken up residence. Perhaps 15-20 by a moderate conservative count.   And down the road a bit at Harpley estate another wetlands holds perhaps as many again.

So suitably armed with appropriate Snipe photographing equipment, I have the past few Friday afternoons ventured out to Heathdale Glen Orden.

The wetlands is in a flood retarding basin with houses and football grounds, swings and slides around its periphery. Once the main water channel becomes full, it overflows across the surrounding low-lying land and of recent weeks has had between 10 -20cm of water among some lovely low grass tussocks, and mud.  Ideal for your visiting Snipe it seems.

They feed in the early morning and late afternoon and then squat for most of the day. But walk past one, and it takes the air with a rasping “Chakzak”, and well, its gone.
Irritatingly for the average in flight photographer they zig zag as they go making it next to impossible to keep them in the viewfinder.

To be honest, they are not a bird I have info on, other than what I can google and chat to a few folk who have done serious bird counts.  More of that to follow I suspect.

So to Friday.

We have have had a couple of day of torrential rain. As much as 60mm or more over the two days.
And Friday morning looked like it was going to continue.  So I put aside ideas of a trip down to Heathdale Glen Orden.  But by lunchtime it had cleared up and blue skies were the order of the day, and with a cheerful heart I grabbed the D500, the 300mm PF and a pair of gumboots.
But, and you knew that was coming.

But, by the time I arrived, and its only a 10min trip, the sky had gone leaden. Still, I concluded, I was here and I may as well go look see.

And as I wrote on Flickr the other night, you’ve got to picture old dude, with camera sloshing about in gumboots in 20cm of water and really sticky mud, looking for an impossible find. When Chakzak, there goes one. Swing camera, locate bird, wait for for D500/300PF to do its thing. Bird gone. Oh.

Take two sloshing steps.  Chahzak, there goes another, Chahzak, oh, now two, and I can’t get the beasts focused no matter what. Except I’ve some nice sharp shots of the lignum they flew past.
Chahzak, and another and another and… well you get the idea.

It’s the zig zag that does it. They have an ability to turn at speed, that has to be seen to be understood.

This is from a previous week with sunshine

And as I worked my way across the waterlogged landscape the light began to turn to porridge and the shutter speed went down, and that wasn’t the only down as a light rain began to hiss out of the darkening clouds.
The next couple that took off gave me a chance as they ran along a fence line with plenty of open space, and the camera/lens combo kicked into life.  And the raindops became larger and more frequent, and I was now about 10 minutes from the car.
One last Chahzak, and a brief view in the finder and it was over.  Slosh back to the car.

Funny really, old dude, water, mud, rain.  No wonder the little 8 year old kid used to love to follow Magpie Larks around. Although then we called them Muddies for obvious reasons. Still among my fav birds. All very Taoist to have returned to the beginning.

By the time I was back at the car reality had set in and the raindrops were now serious.  In the 10 minutes to home it turned into a major downpour, and I’d only put the kettle on for a cuppa when the thunder and lighting began, and the rain gauge began to fill up for the first time in a very long time.

More work to be done on Snipe.  Just needs some good light and patience.

 

 

Eynesbury Gems— Take #2

Posted in Uncategorized6 Comments

You can guess that it is raining here today. ‘Cause I’m stuck inside and I’ve cleaned the cameras and formatted the memory cards, (twice) and charged the batteries.  And its still raining.  Beaut really as it will freshen up a very tired bush.

But on the other hand the only thing left on the todo list is to finish off the Eynesbury Series.  So here is episode #2.

 

Not much to add from the previous ramble so here we go with eight more shots from the day.

Enjoy

Varied Sittella, showing off its usual pattern of going down the tree in hunt for food

 

Brown Thornbill. Not often I get a shot of it out in the open. Usually only just hear them or see a movement in the bushes

 

Speckled Warbler, and this is as good as it got. There seems to be four or more pairs at work in various parts of the Grey Box. Hearing them is one thing, getting a view another, but photographing them an whole new ball game. Still it keeps us going out

 

Striated Pardalote

 

Pretty excited with this find as its the first Sacred Kingfisher that I’ve seen in Eynesbury. Given the number of “Pee Pee Pee” calls I’d be certain of a number of them being in the forest.

 

A very young Pacific Black Duck. I’ve included it as its a rather special little duck. Somehow it has been seperated from its family. We’ve seen it from a very small duckling and each time have been a little surprised that it has managed to survive on its own. There certainly are other families of young ducks out there, but none that are at the same age as this loner. Good luck little duck.

 

And of course it wouldn’t be a trip without a visit to Jacky Winter. Shows how far I am behind in the Blogging business. They have since fledged the two young they were nursing. So there is two new Jackys in the forest. Will do a blog on their exploits in the not to distant future.

Saturday Evening Post #009

Posted in Uncategorized9 Comments

Had been looking forward to getting a second Eynesbury story to the blog this week, but sad, to say between bad weather, bad organisation, a day at Hanging Rock with Werribee Wagtails,  and a couple of family events, time just frittered away.

 

This is from my Enyesbury journal.
The Sulphur-crested Cockatoos have been feasting among the black wattle now that the flowers have gone to seed. Plenty of work for a large flock, and each individual seems to have its own technique for dealing with the rich smorgasbord.
And because of their ability to deal with the human condition a close approach didn’t seem to be all that hard.  All I had to do was wait for the leaves to be in the right spot, and the bird ready to draw up the next offing.

I’ve been using the Teleconverter TC1.7 on the PF 300mm f/4 lens of late.  It makes it a bit on the slow side, but it is quite a light and easy to handle kit for many bush birds.  Not my favourite for inflights, but life as they say is a compromise.
I’ve done a few tests and while it is sharp, it’s not as sharp as the Sigma 150-600 Sport. But that kit is a lot heavier.
Just for the record, I think the TC 1.7 works better at higher shutter speeds and the VIbration Reduction (VR) turned off.  The net has so many arguments about how the VR performs when left on, but you’ve only got look at EE’s Flickr site to see how good it can be on the TC1.4  EE has had the TC 1.4 on from day 1 and the VR set to Normal.  Sometimes we get to be too gear conscious and miss the simplicity of working at the photo rather than extolling the equipment.  As David DuChemin says, “Gear is good, but, Vision is Better.

 

This shot is nearly a full frame, cropped only for effect.

 

Keep takin’ photos. We do.

 

 

Saturday Evening Post #008: Book Review

Posted in Pete Souza4 Comments

Normally I don’t do book reviews, nor equipment boosts and the like.  I also have refrained on this blog from entering into discussion on Politics, Religion or Sport.  Except of course for the occasional swipe at these hot potatoes.

So what is a book doing here?  Hardly birds.
And right you are.

However Obama an Intimate Portrait is by a photographer.  Pete Souza by name.  Not one the average birdo will have heard of, but stay with me on this and we’ll see where it goes.

First I’m not asking, suggesting or hinting you go out and buy this book.  Its big, bold and expensive.  Interlibrary loan is a good option. Worked for me.

I first found out about Pete’s work from The Online Photographer (TOP) blog.

Mike Johnston has been an editor I’ve followed for many a year, he used to be editor of a magazine called PHOTOtechnique, which used to explore some great photographic processes in the days of film (I refuse to call it analogue or Analogue).

Anyway here is Mike on the book,

And a link to Pete Souza’s site about the book.

For those who enjoy people photography there is so much to like about the book, and dare I say it out loud, but also to gain an understanding of the man at the center of the photos. Obama.
Pete spent most days, and many hours of the day with the President.  He collected over 2 million images.
And it began to dawn on this old brain, that had I not pursued my photographic path,  I might have enjoyed being able to photograph, not as a paparazzi, but working with people to make compelling intimate portraits.

And ding!!!!!

There is the connection.

Much of what I either show here or on Flickr or place as wall art, or calendar or book work, with the wide variety of birds that I have the privilege to work with, is to bring intimate portraits of fascinating moments in their lives.

Now, I’m not comparing to Pete’s work, just pondering the way roads diverge and converge at the most unpredictable times.

Obama writes the foreward to the book, and I’m going to take the journalistic license to quote one small piece.  See if it resonates with your own work, or your interest in birds.

“… what makes Pete such an extraordinary photographer, I think, is something more than his ability to frame an interesting moment. It’s his capacity to capture the mood, the atmosphere, and the meaning of that moment. And for all the unique and often historic images he captured, he never made himself part of the story those images told.”

You’ve probably noted the “No Shape No Shadow” trailer I added to the site. (a Tai Chi thing), I think Pete might have been happy to accept that as his working mantra.

Back to birds next week. Promise.

I really liked this spread as it shows the man, “POTUS”, as Pete nicknamed him, putting his foot on a weigh machine for one of his staff, and relaxing as any Dad would like to on the lawn with one of the kids.