Author: David Jenkins

Today, we kitted up for an evening down by the dam, the thermos and a few edibles to make a nice picnic in the cool of the evening.

Went via the access road down from the carpark, and to our surprise noted that the chain and lock were off the Backpaddock Gate. Definition of Backpaddock – Bandicoot Big Brother House, or Bandicoot Hilton.

Pretty excited were we.  And we tentatively opened the gate and tip toed in.  Don’t want to wake a sleeping Bandicoot we thought.

No sign of said beasties, nor any robins for that matter.  It was still a bit too hot for hunting, so we had a quick look about and then resumed our course down to the dam.
But the park is open.  Well done all.

We did note a number of Pallid Cuckoos, which any other time would have caused concern but today we liked the idea, as it meant that there must be some birds in there for the cuckoos to bother.  They’d not be hanging around where there was no chance of popping in an egg or two.

The dam as it turned out, was a bit of a let down, so we returned via  the Goshawk Mansion and had a look at the quadruplets.  All looking very dashing in their new feathers.  Not long to go and they’ll be on the branches and then look out world.

Saw one of the parent birds make a number of quite high passes over the dam area and up toward the Sugar Gums, mind with that many mouths to feed they are probably working all day.

When I first peaked out the window, the day looked decidedly overcast. Pity, ’cause I’d wanted to get out early in the morning to see the Tawny Frogmouth chicks, and to get a few frames of the ever expanding Brown Goshawk family.

Once the sun had risen it looked like it might burn off the clouds, and that was all I needed to load the car, and depart.

I love the bush in the early morning, and I love the way the light plays through the trees so already I was happy. But, when I got to the park, NO frogmouths.  Not even a feather!  They had flown that morning it seems.  Try as I might I couldn’t find them among the several trees in the area.  So down to the Goshawk Nursery.

Its a difficult sighted nest for a photographer. No matter where you stand there is always  a few small leaves and twigs or great big trees in the way. Clever Goshawk. I found a reasonable spot, set up the camera and then taking the radio remote, I moved back along the track.  Just got settled when Neil A turned up and setup as well.  So we had a bit of a discussion on birds, photography and lighting and other cool photo stuff. Neil has been monitoring them almost from get go, so he knew when things would happen, and right on cue at about 10 am, the four young birds emerged, stretched, preened and enjoyed the sunshine.  Mum was somewhere near as she kept up a constant call.

Andrew had been to the park that morning, saw the Tawnies and called Andrienne to go and have a look, so she turned up too.

In the middle of all that, I heard a call from a red-capped robin. Yes, a red-capped robin. So off I went to investigate, and lo and behold, up popped Lockie. He was busy feeding someone, but didn’t stop to chat, nor did he give away the nest location, but further discussion with him shall follow.

We were packing up to get home in time for our various duties when along the track came Ray.  Now he and I haven’t seen one-another for quite a few months, so we had another great discussion on the state of the birds in Woodlands and birds in general. What a great morning. He then let me in on the secret location of the Frogmouths, so, back to look, and sure enough the one tree I had ignored, out in the sunshine all four. Mum, Dad, and the two little’uns.  They gave us a brief introduction to their flying and branch hopping skills.

So all in all a good morning some great conversation and some super bird activity. Needless to say I was pretty late home and had to postpone a couple of other activities until tomorrow. Sad ah?

I’m breaking in a D2x at the moment, old technology, but really a pleasure to use. Fast on focus and super fast on speed.  But like all this stuff the buttons and dials are just not where they were on the other kit.  But hey, its all learning.

This mornings weather can only be described as ‘Windy’,  too much to go to the bush, so went shopping instead.  In that age old tradition of ‘If the going gets tough, the tough go shopping’.

On the way back in the afternoon, the weather had cleared and lovely evening light, that landscape photographers drool over was ours for the asking, so we took a swing around on the way home and went to the Providence Rd carpark, just to see how Dad and the kids were doing.  Dad apparently sits by day, and Mum by night.

To our delight, not only was Dad there, with the two little bundles of fluff, but Mum, was putting in an appearance on a branch just below the nest.  I’d been looking for her over the paddocks for the past few weeks, but to no avail. So nice to have her on the ‘family’ tree.

Just too far back on the branch to get everybody in focus, but hey, most of the good gear was safely at home.

The evening light was a lovely contrast to the morning.  Then when I got home I received and email from Neil A saying he’d been out in the afternoon and seen all four. Great.

Found a pair of Willie Wagtails dressing down a Kookaburra that had slipped into their nest territory.  Managed a few nice shots of the encounter, one with the Kooka’s bill wide open, and the wagtail just out of reach. In the end, the Kookaburra had other things to do and took off with both wagtails on hot pursuit.

This is more a Silhouette than anything else, but it was the last pic I took before the pair flew directly toward the sun.  The 300mm f/4 lens has no flare, and the sun is only just out of picture angle, so I am pretty pleased with all that.  The 300mm f/4 has been one of the better things I have put to use in the bird photo business. The pic is also taken with the old- outdated- technology  My faithful and useful Nikon D200.  I must admit when I want a bird to be focused on fast, then I can always rely on the smaller number of focus points in the D200 to not spend a lot time discussing the merits of this part, or that part of the subject.  Oh, it’s in the centre.  Bang. Dead on.

Mr An Onymous and I were taking a bit of a tour through the Snow Gums at Woodlands on friday morning and a gentle but persistent ‘peep, peep, peep’ greeted us from among the lower tree leaves.  A bit of a look about and we discovered a Spotted Pardalote had spotted us.

We came to the conclusion because of its persistence that there is probably a nest nearby. But it let us get quite close with the long lenses, the big cameras, the heavy duty tripods, and just peeped at us.  Kind.

I think it is the brown rumped variety, An’s picture shows a definite dark brown colour, but I didn’t get any with its bum on display.

Such a tiny little bird.  It couldn’t be any bigger than my thumb. Book claims as little as 8gm.  Such an elegant tiny creature. Such a pleasure to photograph.

Hope we can find it again under similar circumstances.

Its almost becoming a complaint I can put to music. “No Redcaps about at the moment”. No access to the Bandicoot Big Brother House.  blah blah blah.

We’ve been lucky enough to be put on to a pair of Eastern Yellow Robins, so we’ve taken to travelling out there of late.

As it turns out, we’ve spotted three birds.  A pair and a helper.  The ever reliable HANZAB tells the tale of how the helpers are called in to assist with nesting duties.  I’m going to call the second one a male, as it seems to get chased by the male, and there has been a number of branch dancing performances with one bird flying off backward.  A pretty sure sign of defeat in the territory stakes, I’m told.

Still it flys in with building material and the odd grub or two for food. The female readily accepts it, but the male will come in and round it up for another flying round trees and branch dance session.  Time will tell.

I’ve also been lucky with the light.  Soft mostly, and once a little rain to and sunshine to reflect back into the shadows. Nice, I couldn’t do that in a studio.

We’ll see how they go over the next few weeks, and continue to look for redcaps, and of course the Kestrel patrol. Not having much luck there either. See the first couple of sentences. <gg>

It’s been a few days since we’ve ventured out.  A few home things being a bit more pressing than normal.

There are a number of birds at nest in the Woodlands Park area, and the main one is the Tawny Frogmouth, near the carpark.  Just down the track a bit, is a Brown Goshawk, and just inside the carpark area is a Black-faced Cuckoo Shrike.  We found anther Brown Goshawk today down by the Sugar Gums, and the only ones that seem to be in recession are the robins.

Not that that is stopping the Will o’Scarlet.  He is like Eddie Everywhere, and came bowling up to meet me in the morning sunshine.
Every-time I see him I amazed at the transformation from the scruffy little chap that first appeared nearly a year ago.