Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw In Memoriam; Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Welcome to Interludes:
We had been monitoring a pair of Black-shouldered Kites for the past several months, in between lockdowns, and had come to the conclusion that perhaps they had abandoned the project due to the cold weather.
However a couple of weeks ago things seemed to change, the male began to bring in food and took to sitting on a tree close to where we thought the nest might be. Plaintive cries from a hungry female confirmed it.
But, the nest tree was cleverly located behind a huge chainwire fence at the Treatment Plant and access and a close approach was out of the question. So in between weeks at home and bad weather we just had to wait.
Then, the weather opened up one morning to sunshine and we journeyed out for a looksee.
Can’t be sure, but it is pretty clear that the young had emerged from the nest, and at least one of them has made a few tentative flights.
Set up, settle in, see what happens.
One of the young took to the air, but its direction and control skills needed much more development. Eventually after much loud calling it landed a bit down range in the next tree.
Unfortunately, the tree was already inhabited by a nesting Australian Magpie.
And Maggie has a zero tolerance for visitor. Enraged and highly defensive, the little Kite would be no match for Maggies sustained attack.
There are no First Warnings!We have a NO Visitors PolicyNot on MY tree you don’tContactOuch, That Hurt!Pressing home its attackSafely back on the Nest: We didn’t see it again for the afternoonThe Cavalry Arrives. But after several half-hearted swoops on the enraged Magpie, Dad gave up.
Here we are a week or so out of a nearly 4 month lockdown. Depends of course where you start counting, but we were in one of the ‘naughty’ suburbs, so our privileges were removed a bit earlier than the rest of the city.
For EE and I, a run down to “The Office” was always going to be high on the must do first list.
So given a halfway decent burst of sunshine and we were off.
The one thing that we noted first was the amount of grass that covered normally bare areas. A distinct lack of large kites, Black and Whistling, and how well some of the smaller scrub birds had done getting an early nesting in.
So in no particular order.
Purple-crowned LorikeetPurple-crowned Lorikeet pair. Sad to report that the old branch has since parted from the tree trunk, exposing the nest, and they have moved on somewhere else. They have been loyal to this spot for at least the past four seasons.Purple-crowned Lorikeet. Protecting its nest from maraudersLittle Lorikeet. This one led me a merry chase through the leaves. I could hear it, but it just wasn’t easy to see.Happiness is… A White-browed Scrubwren with tucker for its young.Looks like the Dusky Woodswallows has swept in while we were in lockdown and already had a clutch of young on the wingMost interesting find of the day. Juvenile Fantail Cuckoo waiting to be fed.Fantail; Cuckoo and its hosts, White-browed Scrubwrens. The adult Cuckoo must have been very clever as I always find these little birds among the most wary.Higher up the track on the cliff line, a pair of Australian Hobby are re-nesting in a familiar spot. More to come on their progress I think.The age old battle of David and Goliath. The immovable object v the irresistible force. Both have much at stake with young to be fed.
At “The Office”, there are a resident pair of Brown Falcon.
(Called the Office, because we spend a bit of time there as in—Just another day at the office—)
One of Brown’s qualities certainly must be their patience. Happy to sit quietly, seemingly disinterested, they take the scene in, work out where the food is, and then strategies to get to the spot, and return with the least amount of energy dissipation.
Not unusual to see Brown, sitting with its distinct upright stance on a post, branch or roadside sign for what seems hours. Passing traffic has little effect on the bird’s demure stance.
We’ve worked with this pair for a few years, and when they are around, its interesting to see them favour one or another perching locations.
I’ve featured this bird several times on the blog over the years, and have called him “Bernie”. Late evening sunshine ‘burnishes,’ his rich mottled chest, and so the name seemed appropriate. Not that he seems to care it must be said.
He was hunting for small crickets and the like on the edge of the river cliffs. A large melaleuca bush is one of the favoured perches. Gives a great view along the cliffs and he can prop into the branches and so be protected from attacks from the rear. Magpies, mudlarks, other raptors might swing by and attempt to dislodge him, but clever bird that he is, he simply sets back further among the branches and any attack is thwarted by the branches.
We had been working with him for about an hour or so and the light had been good, and as we headed for home, I peeked over the rim and there he was in the bush. But the light had diminished, still it was worth waiting for him to throw as it would have to be toward or at least to the side.
I don’t often shoot multi-burst, but figured that by the time he left the bush and got settled he’d have to stay pretty much in the same focus plane and most of the shots would be sharp (ish). Pity about the light and slow shutter speed.
So EE and I waited. Things happen slowly in Brown Falcon time. But you’ve got to keep your eye on the bird, as they don’t give a lot of warning that they are going to move.
So we waited.
Brown waited.
It’s one of the reasons why with a long lens we invest in a good tripod, and a Wimberley gimbal head. Takes all the weight off the arms. But, who wants to carry all that heavy gear out just on the off chance it might be needed. So, I was shooting handheld with the 500mm PF. Light enough, but after 10 minutes my aching muscles needed a rest. And then there is always the risk that is the moment the bird will throw.
Waiting.
Another round or two of holding until the muscles cramp, and then releasing.
Waiting.
I was just regrabbing focus and had the shutter half-pressed, when with barely a feather ruffle Bernie took to the air, straight toward me, and I ripped off a sequence.
“Oh No,” I heard on my right. And it was just at that moment EE had taken a muscle relief stretch. Sympathy doesn’t cut it. Gloating is not part of the process.
Here are all the frames from the sequence. I thought it was interesting how the wings are deployed to get him out of the bush, and turned for the run along the grass.
{EDIT} It wasn’t until I re-looked at the shots here on the blog that it shows that on the upwing strokes the rocks his legs forward pendulum like, on the more powerful down stroke, the legs go back to close to the body. Just like a kid on a swing. Brown, you always amaze me.
Enjoy
Bernie arriving at the bush. I shot this one earlier in the day, and you can just see the edge of the river cliff in the bottom of the frame.Snug, safe and on the alert
Typical Brown Falcon flight. Ground hugging radar in actionThis is a close flyby from earlier in the afternoon when the light was good. Go Bernie
We don’t get many Little Lorikeets down around The Office area. But there are several pairs that seem to come and go on a regular basis, and I suspect they might always be in the area, just too high up to notice.
With reports of Purple-crowned Lorikeets in the general area, we wondered if they might be at The Office, so took Dolly on a bit of a traverse to see what we could find. Despite EE’s best attempts, we couldn’t spot, let alone hear them. We were getting ready for the trek back out, when the “rattley rolling, squeaky” call came from a tree behind. And there was a pair of Little Lorikeets engaged in some preening and pairbonding alopreening.
It’s beginning to look like I’m getting in a rut with raptors and food.
Mostly just a bit of a backlog of other work and the natural progression of things.
Interesting to be posting such work on the blog, as it fulfills a learning process I’m journeying on at the moment. Exploring photography, my own work in particular, as an iterative process. Or a journey of versions that lead to new discoveries.
That is: the repetition that builds on the previous shot. It is where the concept of ‘multi-burst’ and I diverge. I need to have thought out the changes, or the visual differences from shot to shot. Not just blaze away and pick out the ‘best looking one’, to tidy up in Photoshop.
Not, as I’m sure you can imagine a simple step by step process when it comes to birds that are unpredictable at best, and downright difficult to get to understand at the worst. Which I think is why ‘iterative’ is such a useful motif.
EE and I were at The Office. The Red Gum picnic area to be specific. Its a short trip down for Dolly, and if all goes well, there can be an interesting array of birds on a good day.
We were sitting enjoying the Grey of Earl, and a snack, when a grey shadow moved over our heads and flew toward the large dead skeleton of a tree by the river’s edge.
“A Whistling Kite,” quoth she.
Then it became, as we moved nearer, that said Kite also had bought a snack too. It had found a discarded Shingleback Lizard carcass remains. Now, it might be that the Kite had made the kill, but the condition of the carcass suggested it more likely had retrieved it after it was abandoned. Most of the rich middle parts of the hapless creature were already gone.
So we sat and watched it play with its food, and all went well until a ‘murder of crows’ in the form of a group of ravens moved in to help the Kite. They believed it seems, in ‘share and share alike’, so long as they got the goodies to share.
Our hero was having none of that and scooping up its meal, it departed to a more secure area.
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.
After yesterday’s relatively quiet day, we had planned a day at home as those weather prognosticators were falling over themselves combing their various thesauri for even more gigantic, huge, colossal, mammoth, immense, tremendous, immeasurable, Brobdingnagian(Ye of Gulliver’s Travels will understand), humongous, astronomic, ginormous words to describe what was to be a weather of mass destruction, headed our way, so we had decided that it would be a doonah day, and we’d sleep through it all. The patter of rain on the roof and window shutters seemed for once to confirm their cosmic, epic, giant, stupendous, mega predictions.
However as I peeked out from under the protective, shielding, defensive, safety, preventive, insulating, warmth of the doonah, what was it I spied coming in under the window shutters.
Gasp, horror, elation, joy, disbelief. Was that sunshine.
No prizes Sherlock. It was sunshine.
In quick succession t’was breakfast, pack cameras, (I think there should be a get dressed in there somewhere) pack a thermos of Green Tea, (I’m off the Grey of Earl at present), tuck in the Drizabone Jacket, and head to the Office. Also we beat the Mother’s School run, so the roads were fairly, rather, a little, slightly, comparatively, after a fashion, reasonably, kind of, sort of ish, quiet.
But the wind across the carpark sang a different tune. Large gusts, of huge, colossal, mammoth, immense, tremendous…. you get the picture… winds that made even the Drizabone Jacket feel a bit challenged.
Ahh, dear reader. Bet you didn’t expect so soon an update 🙂
Chatting, as I usually do with my current mentor, and it was suggested, that the challenge of writing a full page blog with scintillating patter that is both cogent and helpful may only be causing the blog, well, to blog down. Err bog down.
So welcome to a new addition to the world of blogging at Birds as Poetry. Snapshots
Snapshots will be a quick collection of shots from a given event or location. Not a lot of pretty patter, but rather just the images to do the talking. After all that is what I really do best.
That leaves, Postcards to be a bit more in-depth on either an event, or more likely an encounter with one or two birds.
Then Studiowerkz will carry on doing the in-depth photographic detail from a shoot. Kind of the ‘Day Book’ of photography of yore. Interestingly enough we concluded that a photo might get a boost in Snapshots, the pop up in Postcards, and finally make an appearance in Studiowerks with info on the whole studio-like encounter.
Then there will be those times when verbal virtuosity takes hold of me and the muse connects with the spirit of the universe and the words literally write themselves and I can wax lyrical about happenings of all sorts of birding activity. Expect to see Sea-eagle pics in that one.
Well we’ll see.
So here is Snapshots.
And an important one it is.
EE and I did a trip to “The Office” this afternoon. Had a particular Australasian Darter and a probable nest site as our goal.
But when we arrived in the carpark, the first thing we noted were Flame Robins!
“Forget the years, forget distinctions.
Leap into the boundless and make it your home!”
― Zhuangzi
Here’s a quick one as I’m still smiling after watching it happen
Take two Purple-crowned Lorikeets in preening mode. Have one of them decide that its more fun on the other side of the branch.
Imagine (if you will), it can fly across to the new spot.
But.
Our hero of the moment takes a much more direct approach. Had I but known this would have been so much more fun to see in video.
Enjoy
Nothing like a preen and a wingstretch to build a pair bond
Flow with whatever is happening
and let your mind be free.
Stay centered
by accepting whatever you are doing.
This is the ultimate.Zhuang Zhou
Truth be told, its been quite a long time between drinks at “The Office”.
A lot been happening, but mostly, the weather, a sore heel that slows down my walking, lack of birds and perhaps general sloth has kept us away from The Office at the Werribee River Park.
You could also add the amount of time spent looking for and not finding those elusive Sacred Kingfishers, but that would be at tad churlish methinks.
So it was with quite a high degree of expectation that we loaded up Sir Perceval, and headed on one of his amazing Quests.
For a few months last year a female Eastern Osprey visited the western side of Port Phillip. It spent some of that time along the Werribee River lower parts, fishing in the tidal estuary. We named her Eloise, because of her most elegant appearance.
To our delight, she has made a welcome return.
At this stage she has been mostly seen around the K-Road Cliffs area, which has given photographers and birders excellent views.
Needless to say of course we’ve been down to say hello.
We have had some rain. 70mm in 3 days, the gauge says.
And, this morning, I set out for my weekly Tia Chi class. Start of a new semester, so I was pretty excited about getting back to class. And at 8:00am, as I was getting ready, the rain, was, well, sheeting down. So any ideas of spending a few hours with the birds at The Office, were not even a glimmer of hope. But a we settled into such routines as “Waving hands like Clouds”, “White Crane Cools Wings”, and “Monkey offers a Peach”, it was possible to glimpse a shaft of brilliant sunshine making an appearance through the clouds. By the time we paused for a break, it was definitely bright sunshine warming me though the window, and stirring the possibilities of a chance to venture out in the early afternoon.
EE soon agreed and we headed out right after lunch. To my despair, the road into The Office, was waterlogged. And we picked our way along through the water, and the puddles and the inevitable mud pools. On arrival at the carpark, Kitty and Kalev were nowhere to be seen, and despite looking for a while, we still were Kiteless. So we wandered down to the river area.
Which as it turns was a great move.
Toward the end of last year, a pair of Black-shouldered Kites— we named them Kitty and Kalev-the Brave— set up and successfully fledged three young.
Well, they are back! Or so it seems. Of course they could be completely different birds, but given their relaxed and settled manner, and the way they interact, I’d be pretty certain that we are looking at Kitty and Kalev-the Brave.
Birds as Poetry —— Just because I WANDER - --doesn't mean I'm LOST 