David Jenkins

Counting Birds at Mt Rothwell

October 22, 2018November 13, 2018Posted in Mt Rothwell, Rainbow Bee Eater, Striated Pardalote, Tawny Frogmouth, Uncategorized, Werribee WagtailsTagged Birdlife Werribee, Mt Rothwell, Werribee Wagtails4 Comments

My local bird group, BirdLife Werribee, or more affectionately known by the previous name, “Werribee Wagtails” has for many years been doing bird surveys once a quarter at various sites.
This weekend we surveyed the Mt Rothwell Conservation and Research Centre just to the north of the You Yangs range.
To quote Peter Sellers from “Balham Gateway to the South”,
—It is exciting work and my forefathers have been engaged upon it since 1957—

The previous few days of rain had managed to get past the You Yangs rainshadow and give the area decent drink. As we assembled, we were joined by a group from BirdLife Australia, Ovens and Murray.

And the bush seemed to respond to our enthusiastic banter as we walked over the various tracks that lead through the park.

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Saturday Evening Post #002

October 20, 2018October 20, 2018Posted in Saturday Night Post, Spotted Harrier, UncategorizedTagged featured, Spotted Harrier7 Comments

I want to sing like the birds sing. 
Not worrying about who hears, 
or what they think
Rumi

For those who’ve seen a Black-shouldered Kite food exchange, you’ll agree that the process is highpowered, high speed and high risk.
The male, with mouse, hangs in mid-air while his mate, barrels up to snatch the mouse, usually knocking him about as she passes.
One one occasion, I saw her lock claws over his, and he couldn’t let go of the mouse, and she was not going to release her lunch.

After a bit of struggling it resulted in them tumbling wing over wing, body rotating around body, as they completely out of control plummeted to ground. And she would not let go.
Finally she, being the bigger of the two, gained enough wing control to halt their descent, which left him hanging or rather swaying upside down. Perhaps she relented her release for a milli-second and he was free to drop away and fly off.
I worked with another pair, the male only had one working foot, and he never did food exchange in the air, and I often wondered if he lost the use of his limb in such an incident.

But, I’ve never seen a Spotted Harrier exchange close up. Always they happen far out over the paddocks, two birds fly toward each other, exchange and then they fly apart. The mechanics had eluded me. Until the other day.

A pair of Spotted Harrier are preparing a nest, and in between collecting sticks and grasses, there is time for top up of food.

For a good part of the morning they had been calling back and forth, a bit like the Three Little Pigs building their house.
Then the call changed, much more warble than the shrill call of a bird of prey. “That is strange,”, saith I to EE who was on the other side of the vehicle, “There is a change or something is happening.”

And sure enough she sprang out of the nest tree and headed across the paddock. About then, I caught sight of the male, who stopped and Harrier-like hung in mid air about 50-60 metres from where we were standing.
She then wafted in as a good Harrier would, and they danced about one another in the air for a moment or two, then she raised the wings and ever so gently slipped in under his, and took the mouse in a total surgical move. Simple, almost ballet like. He watched to be sure all was well, and then just slid away. She returned to the treeline to enjoy her snack

Amazing to see the completely different approach to food handling.

Saturday Evening Post 001

October 13, 2018October 20, 2018Posted in Great Egret, Saturday Night Post, Uncategorized, Werribee MansionTagged featured, Great Egret, Werribee Mansion10 Comments

“Thus it is said:
The path into the light seems dark,
the path forward seems to go back,"
Lao Tzu

What, I said to myself, is the point of having a blog if I don’t post something to it?
So after bumping into Robin Whalley’s site, The Lightweight Photographer, he is all into Mirrorless cameras, get it, light weight!!!! I thought his idea of a current shot with a little bit of ramble seemed like a good way to keep the blog roll rollin’. (think a theme song is in there somewhere, shades of old b&w tv and Rowdy Yates.) Oh, I date myself.

Had a bit of time at the Mansion Lake of recent. And as the evening sun was dropping behind the trees, small shafts of light ran between the wonderful, large, trees, and made great little spot lit openings on a super stage.
All I had to do was call in the talent, and have it fly into the light, and being the obliging bird it is, (This egret is a regular at the Ornamental Lake, and has been on the blog and my Flickr sites on more than a number of occasions.) it did.

BTW, Robin Whalley has some rather useful books and vids on using software such as Lightroom, Photoshop, On One and others. His approach I rather enjoy, and as he is now doing a series on Nik Software, my fav Noise Reduction and Sharpening tools, I guess I’m a bit hooked.

Cue Great Egret. Enter Stage Left.

Click for larger SIZE

Pied Cormorant Call of the Season

October 9, 2018October 9, 2018Posted in Jawbone Conservation Park, PIed CormorantTagged Jawbone Conservation Park, PIed Cormorant7 Comments

We had truth be told, taken a trip down to the Jawbone Conservation Park at Williamstown. One of my Flickr mates David Nice, had reported a Great Crested Grebe. As the ponds can give good access to the birds in quite a few places, it seemed like a good idea to have a looksee.

On our day, however, the Great Crested Grebes (there are two there), must have been hunting out in the open water, as not a crest nor a feather were to be found.

As the Jawbone lakes are quiet water, the water birds use the area as a resting spot, and also to get to know one another it seems.

We watched for 15 to 20 minutes a pair of Pied Cormorant that had more than fishing on their mind.

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Little Visits: Little Ravens

September 30, 2018September 30, 2018Posted in Uncategorized9 Comments

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh: Ker-Lunk.
A Little Raven flew past my ear, and landed directly on the picnic table in front of me.
Grab camera. Now the bird is so close I can’t get focus. Move back on table, eventually get a great head shot.
With a boldness that had to be experienced to be understood, it walked over the table checking out anything that would be usable food.

Long time readers may recall that I used to do quite a few “Little Visits” when I was having my Nikon 1 Series excursus. But when it became clear Nikon had abandoned the system, well so did I. And with it of course my Little Visits. (Little being a reference to the N 1 system- hope that wasn’t too subtle)

But this visit has made me want to revive the series. Sort of suits a lot of what I’m currently doing in the field. Rather than chasing lots of birds, I’m back to working with just a few.

So, after checking the table, and the surrounds and yes, I know, I don’t feed birds, but I ‘accidentally’ dropped a bit of my muesli bar and my visitor was very quick to retrieve, fly to the river, soften it off in the water and then fly to a branch just over my head and deposit it into the waiting beak of its recently fledged young one. Ahh!

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Snapshots: From Hope Street

September 23, 2018September 27, 2018Posted in Uncategorized13 Comments

It’s a little known factoid, that EE and I walk along the Werribee River near our unit most mornings. Weather permitting we do it before breakfast, and during the winter months that means the start is before daylight.
One of the access streets near our village is Hope Street. Now a friend of mine would like to add “NO” to the front of it, but I have those sorts of acquaintances. Some might even suggest that I attract them.

A highlight of our egress along Hope Street is greeting a friendly pair of Australian Magpies that have made the area their territory. She has had five nestings over the years since we’ve been passing. Her male has a damaged leg, and he is unable to stand or hunt on the ground. He is however quite capable of perching on fences and lamposts.

A few weeks back as I walked down Hope Street, a rambling carolling call from directly overhead stopped me. Looking up, I saw Maggie sitting in her newly installed “Grand Design” nest. Enterprising lass had used lots of discarded building material, wire, plastic and the like to add a new story to last year’s nest.

Fast forward a couple of weeks and I took the camera down at first light to see how things were going.

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Studio Werkz: Creative Lighting Challenges

August 8, 2018August 8, 2018Posted in Nankeen Kestrel, Studio Werkz, UncategorizedTagged Nankeen Kestrel, Studio Werkz10 Comments

Warning to Birders. This blog is mostly about photography, and lighting techniques and fanning the creative juices. CLICK AWAY NOW! You have been warned.

My current mentor and I have been playing with the thought, “What if you’ve taken your last “GREAT” photograph.” ;-(

Not one that is technically correct. Used the right lens, got the shutterspeed-iso-aperture worked out. The exposure is dead on. The subject is all as it should be. No need for massive post-production. Not that sort of Great.
But, y’know, Great!

And image that purely by subject/time/lighting/emotional appeal reaches out beyond the frame and the viewer “gets it”. The ones that sometimes we bleed over or travel miles for, or just happens to occur when we walk out the door. You, subject, lighting, mood, atmosphere and feeling all make their stamp on the moment and its, “Great”. Not the one that gets more “Likes” on Facebook, or more “Favs” on Flickr. But one that in a timeless manner somehow moves the thought you saw at the moment to the viewer’s mind and they not only identify but also imbibe.

Y’know like McCurry’s Pic of the Green-eyed Afghan girl on the cover of Nat Geo. Still get shivers when I recall how I first noticed that photo in the news agents rack when I’d wandered in off the street. It was the only magazine in the entire rack that stole my heart away.

I’ve faced some big lighting challenges over the years. Buildings at first or last light. Vehicles in the moody pre-dawn. Brides and Grooms in the midday sun. Chrome laundry bowls on white gloss metal stand. And in all cases the same principles apply.

I had the good fortune to have been trained at one stage by the best.
Dean Collins. Master of Light. —A title he most justifiably deserved.
“He taught us to not only see the light, but to move it, bend it and most importantly control it, no matter where or when we were creating images” tricolorlabs.com

At one seminar Dean showed a 3 foot by 5 foot print of a portrait of Natalie Wood, taken just before her death. No matter where you stood in the room, her beauty shone from the wall. A truly stunning portrait.

So the other evening when the challenge came, I was fascinated how the various elements came together.
Gotta few minutes?
Here we go.

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Snapshots: Mouse Hunting in the Evening Light

July 27, 2018July 27, 2018Posted in Nankeen Kestrel, UncategorizedTagged Nankeen Kestrel5 Comments

We’ve been working with a Nankeen Kestrel for about a week or more now. At first it was a casual acquaintance, but like all things after awhile it gets a little easier to predict what an an individual bird will do.

We dropped by on our way home from a day at the You Yangs Park, looking we thought for Robins. Not that we had much luck.
But the sunshine was holding in the evening light and we decided to see how the Kestrel was doing. I have just about concluded that it’s a first year male, who is still in juvenile dress. I might be wrong, but the light tail feathers and lack of barring are a good sign.

Found (him) sitting quietly on a branch over the paddock. So I decided to walk up through the grass and see if I could get closer, and perhaps get a better angle. And he sat.

Huge amounts of supposition going on here, however I am pretty much convinced that as I walked through the grass, mice in the area fled, but toward the Kestrel. Suddenly the head bobbed back and forth, and then he dropped.

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Snapshots: A Raptor Day at the Treatment Plant

July 16, 2018July 16, 2018Posted in Brolga, Brown Falcon, Nankeen Kestrel, Uncategorized, Western Treatment Plant, WTPTagged Brolga, Brown Falcon, Nankeen Kestrel, WTP4 Comments

A search on the Bureau of Meteorology website, has quite a bit of info on the lack of rain in mid of Australia. See here http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/drought/
At the bottom of the page is a couple of graphs that begin to put it all in perspective.

And as it dries out, it seems, that quite a number of birds are moving south. Or toward the eastern coast.
And we’ve seen quite a change in the numbers of smaller falcons and kites in our area. In the space of a 10 minute drive the other day we saw 14 Nankeen Kestrel.

So we took a trip to the Western Treatment Plant on a sunny morning.

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Drama in Several Acts

July 8, 2018July 8, 2018Posted in Australian Magpie, Brown Falcon, Uncategorized, Western Treatment PlantTagged Australian Magpie, Brown Falcon, Western Treatment Plant14 Comments

We’d be chatting, Mr An Onymous and I, about the history and development of Greek Drama and Tragedy. And the role of Satyr as a political statement. Among the playwrights were Sophocles, and Euripides, and how they used the stage to create the Spectacle and allow the characters and drama to develop. Anyway, you get the idea.

“The Rise and Rise of the Brown Falcon in Unfamiliar Territory”

All good plays need a title that might throw the unwary viewer in the wrong direction.

Curtain Rises.

Act 1

Scene 1. A roadway somewhere along the Western Treatment Plant. Single treeline along roadway. Magpies embedded in trees carolling among themselves.

Enter Stage Left. Single Brown Falcon, flying about tree height toward the roadway. Point to note. Brown is flying slowly and deliberately.

Scene 2. Brown approaches treeline directly toward Magpies. Still slow and deliberate.

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A Bit of a Story

June 15, 2018June 15, 2018Posted in "Western Treatment Plant", Australasian Bittern, UncategorizedTagged Australasian Bittern, Western Treatment Plant14 Comments

Long term readers and those who have worked with me, will know I’m not a great Bird Chaser to get my numbers up.
I can recognise when I find a new bird, Commonly known among the best circles as “A Lifer”. But the thought of chasing a bird across miles/kilometers of country, just to get a fleeting glimpse or a slightly blurry photo that needs to be enlarged from a two pixel size, is not among my ‘must do this year’ things.
My birding, is much more the sitting quietly, enjoying the moment and appreciatting the birds in their world.

I’ve quoted Jon Young before, he of “What the Robin Knows”, so here we go again.
“Practice with the routine of invisibility, and growing respect, connection and San-like recognition, in the vernacular of the bird language, are secrets to close encounters”.

At Werribee Treatment Plant, its not unusual to have a car pull up, and the driver or passengers ask, “Have you seen THE Bittern”. Always THE, so is there only one? or are there more?
Mostly I can dumbly answer, “Sorry, haven’t seen it today!”, to be covered in a cloud of dust as they drive away to the next “opportunity”.

On a whim, we went to the T Section early on Thursday morning. The weather had been predicted to be below average, bordering on the catastrophic, but I’ve rambled enough on Weather Novelists, haven’t I. EE noted some sunshine and blue sky, and said let’s go, breakfast done, we did.

Crisp sunshine looked good, and a stiff breeze was only going to be cold, but that is what Drizabone is for.

It didn’t take the track near the ‘Crake Pond’ long to fill up with the usual 4WD convoys.
And then one of the group came down to where I was photographing a Willie Wagtail hovering in the strong breeze, and say, “They have found THE Bittern up by the pool, do you want to see it.”.

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As Swift as: Swift Parrots at Eynesbury

June 4, 2018June 4, 2018Posted in Eynesbury, Swift Parrot, UncategorizedTagged Eynesbury, Swift Parrot7 Comments

Quick snapshot.

We, EE, Mr An Onymous and I had gone up to Eynesbury for the Eynesbury Environmental Group’s Sunday walk in the forest.

We motored up in style in the An Blackmobile, and what other colour would Anonymous chose. (Let’s not go there).

We arrived in good time, thanks to great navigating by the unnamed driver. Chris, he of the awards, was waiting in the car park and the sun was shining. How good.
We waited for the rest to arrive, and heard a unusal call in the tree line at the carpark. A little searching and lo and behold, to our astonishment, and joy and delight, let it be said, there was a Swift Parrot at work in the tree, feasting on lerp.

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SnapShots: The Account of The Magpie and the Little Eagle

May 27, 2018May 27, 2018Posted in Australian Magpie, Little Eagle, The Office, Werribee River ParkTagged Australian Magpie, Blogg, Little Eagle, The Office, Werribee River Park11 Comments

All good tales have a protagonist and of course the antagonist. From Romeo and Juliet to Jane Eyre, or a Hitchcock movie, the ‘player of the first part’, has always to experience the consequences of decisions.

So as our hero the Little Eagle made its way across the paddocks in the sunshine, oblivious of the dangers, it was soon to learn that not all skies are clear, blue and free.

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SNAPSHOTS: Landing Rights at Cormorant Jetty

May 18, 2018May 18, 2018Posted in PIed Cormorant, Point CookTagged Little PIed Cormorant, PIed Cormorant, Point Cook Coastal Park3 Comments

You can tell, dear reader, when its a quiet birding day. And that I’m down at the Point Cook Coastal Park. When the tide is in, the cormorants, Little Pied and Pied mostly, congregate on an old abandoned pier that orginally served the first Chirnside Homestead in the area.
Now it’s a shadow of its former self, but regularly used by water birds as a safe haven for resting, preening and establishing relationships.

And when there are no other birds on show, well, I settle down on the sand, and watch the comings and goings. Always some new thing to see.

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