Category: Uncategorized

It has been said by those who know, that, ” The call of the sea is heard only by those who have the nature of the sea in them”. And as I have an irrational fear of boats, I guess I missed hearing the sea bellowing at me.

But then there are so many other things that call us, and some we reject and others we accept and it becomes a passion, (Which I guess is what the original quote was poetically referring to.)

I have been a photographer nearly all my life, (excluding the first 8 years of said life). Did I hear some faint shutter sound, imperceptible to those around me. Or was it the slosh of developer in a processing tank? Or the biting smell of acetic acid in the stop bath?
When asked the inevitable question at a function or such, “What do you do? Or these days, “What Did you do?” I always respond the same way. “I am a photographer, by backgound, training and profession”

Because I discoverd early on, answering “Photographer”, always opens up for scorn and derision. Like, how could that be a real occupation!
But the supposed call of photography has rather been more an ear-trumpet to other pursuits. Currently it’s birds. And as I’m getting older, birds in flight, and raptors in particular it seems.

I’ve chased down many alleys in pursuit of images. Two areas I’ve stayed away from are Food photography and Medical photography—can’t stand the sight of blood. 🙂
Each field has usually led me to unusual characters, amazing people, and lots of learning.
Sure, I know, I could have done it someother way, but filling it with photos has been the icing on the cake.

Gail Mooney, (you can find her here on WordPress) said, (and she has at least 30 years experience as an illustrative photographer), ” If I was just starting out, or in my 40’s, or 50’s, … I would not be complacent!”

And I look at all the excuses I’ve used in the past.
Oh its too cold, I’ll stay home
I need a new Lens
The light is not right
I’m not getting enough ‘likes on facebook” —Trust me. That one is made up 🙂
I just can’t find anything to photograph today
Perhaps the client won’t like that shot
The Bride’s Mother kept getting in the way

It’s a long list.

If the call of sea drives sailors to make amazing journeys then I’m so glad that the same sort of call by that ever-so-silent shutter, so long ago has kept me from becoming complacent about making the best pictures I can, as often as I can and enjoying the companship of other like minds.

Nailed Mr and Mrs Muddie in flight—albiet on different days. Just happened to notice them while I was shuffling some pictures around.
Thought a diptych was the answer.

How quickly Belle and Bronson’s young kites have grown.

Yesterday, in the sunshine I might add, we arrived and expected to see them in the adjacent area. But hunt as we might, there was no sign.
Then EE spied them way down the paddock, a long way from the nest.
And for reasons that shall be come obvious, the parents seem to have given them their marching orders.

They have been on the wing just about four weeks. Normally they would be ready to leave, if not gone by about week six, so these young are hopefully well enough advanced to look after themselves.

More searching for the third one, and eventually it turned up a little later in the morning to sit with this pair. One had flown up to the home nesting area, but a very speedy adult flew in a direct, straight line to intercept it, and with some outstretched claws and calling, the young quickly got the message and returned to their end of the paddock.

I read somewhere that the attrition rate for young kites is very high, can’t relocate the details, but it was over 50% that would succumb to an accident, or predator, or starvation within the first year.
(Please don’t quote me on this, and if I find the reference, I will update here)
Once Bronson stops feeding them, there is no further interaction with the parents and they just move on to find food and establish their own territory.

And the reason for their banishment?

It soon became obvious that Belle had a new nest on the go. Normally she would disappear for a few weeks, or month before making a new attempt, but the pair are well on the way to finalising the project and the young kites are unwanted as competition for food.

During the coming week I’ll put up a blog page with some of the actitity from this hatching.

In the meantime, I found this link online of a reseach paper about nesting Black-shouldered Kites up near Tamworth, “Foraging, Breeding Behaviour and Diet of a Family of Black- shouldered Kites Elanus axillaris near Tamworth, New South Wales”
S.l.S. DEBUSl , G.S. OLDP, N. MARSHALU, r. MEYER4 and A.B. ROSE
AUSTRALIAN FIELD ORNITHOLOGY 2006, 23, 130-143

Now some of their findings suggest that Belle and Bronson have either not bothered to read the paper, or the Black-shouldered Kite Instruction book as some of their behaviour differs from the paper’s birds. Still its a fascinating piece of reseach and more power to Stephen Debus and his team for the hours spent in the field and then in collating the findings.

Enjoy

Some interesting comments came up last week from the way I curate my library of photos.
It’s hard on a single page to cover all the ins and outs and to not sound like setting some rules. I guess I was taken by the number of recent blogs and newsletters that have now made a change from ‘save everything’ etc.

There is of course the another side to why we take, and what we share photographically. As Mr. An Onymous is oft to say, “Just being out there in the field is enough. Birds are a bonus”.

Photography is so good at providing a visual memory of a holiday, party, event or field trip. Looking back through my library can provide a feeling of the time we spent in a location, the birds, the weather, the company and the enjoyment.

I found this quote from Sarah Leen who was (is?) Director of Photography at National Geographic.

“It (Photography) has been the way that I have experienced much of the world. In a deeply personal way I feel an image is a poem about time, about “staying the moment.” Photography can defeat time. Images can keep the memory of a loved one alive, hold a moment in history for future generations, be a witness to tragedy or joy. They can also change behavior, stimulate understanding and create a sense of urgency that will move people to action. Photography is the universal language that speaks to the heart.”

To me photography has always been about storytelling. The eye of the photo-journalist at finding both the story and being able to bring it to the page.

Storytelling goes back to the earliest days of photography. One of the very first ‘war photographers’ was an Englishman named Roger Fenton. He was appointed the first official photographer for the British Museum and in 1855 spent time in the Crimea photographing the war. One of his most (in)famous photos shows the also infamous “Valley of the Shadow of Death” (Yet we need to be careful, as this is not the site of the equally infamous charge of the Light Brigage)
It has a most interesting history in that there seems to be two versions. One with cannon balls on the roadway, and one without.
The question arises did he have them placed for dramatic effect or cleared away for pictorial feel?
This is a good review
Either way it is part of his storytelling and adds to the story in a graphic detailed way.

So yes, my library does have lots of shots that will never be acclaimed, but as I review them from time to time, the magic of being in the presence of the bird is a heartwarming experience.

When the night has been too lonely
And the road has been too long
And you think that love is only
For the lucky and the strong
Just remember in the winter
Far beneath the bitter snow
Lies the seed that with the sun’s love
In the spring becomes the Rose

Amanda McBroom
From the movie “The Rose”, sung by Bette Midler.

======================================================================

And a friend sent me this link
Hope you find it interesting

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/25/melbourne-is-suffering-a-reverse-groundhog-day-only-bill-murray-can-save-us-now

I’ve been working on a personal project of late. Independent of any C19 lockdowns, just happens to coincide tonight.

Astute and long term reader that you are, you might have already picked up on a few of the vibes, every so often sections get added to the blog, and somethings just fade away due to lack of interest on the part of the scribe.

birdsaspoetry.com has over the years changed, developed, and waned sometimes depending on my various activities.

Originally set up in the early 1990s it was by invitation only, to a blog that was part of the Apple Mac program, and I had a full .Mac account at the time. But, Apple, decided that running servers for people was not in their core business and it was terminated.   The blog at the time was not so much about birds, but formed part of visual poetry class I was involved with. Someone in the class challenged me about making bird images that demoed some of the visual poetry skills we were working on, and so birdsaspoetry was born. And lived again, mostly by invite on a Bigpond server.  Around the same time, the college I was teaching at introduced a programme for students to work on line with a ‘free’ service on the Edu-blog server. (Another WordPress imprint).
And I moved the blog to there and opened it up.  By then I was photographing at Woodlands Historic Park on pretty much a weekly, sometimes daily basis, and the blog was dominated by the comings and goings of the various birds out there, but, mostly as I settled in to understand the Red-capped Robin, and Scarlet Robin populations and the winter visits of the Rose and Flame and Pink Robins, and later the families of Eastern Yellow Robins that lived in the sugar gum area, the blog took on a much more intimate view into their lives.  Interludes.

But when we moved away in 2014, again all that changed and I began to report our various trips about.

However the new project is a bit of a mix of the past interludes and the challenges of our current on again off again local travels.

Interludes is in fact a personal book project I’ve been working on this year.

It is a picture book, a two page spread, much like the old photojournalism magazines.
Each double page will have as the planning proceeds 6-8 photos and little if any text, of the time we spend with a single bird, or family at a given time (interlude).
It is not a for sale book, simply a portfolio I’m assembling.  Not tonight to talk of the details of how its being assemebled, else I’ve having nothing to write about next week. 🙂

The triptych I revealed last week is a only a rough mock of the front page. Nothing is settled on the picture content.

So, where does the blog fit in.  Well, after all that waffling introduction, you probably saw the first of the connections when I put up, “On the Road Again” during the week.

I’m planning to bring each of the events over to the blog as an in-depth look at a bird, or family and the actions of that day.  Expect some closeups, some action, and a few birds on stick, or inflights.

In a way it revolves the blog back to its roots of the early Woodlands Robins series.

So expect to see short stories, with a number of related photos.
My challenge of course is to keep to the course. 🙂

In the meantime,

The dark does not destroy the light; it defines it. It’s our fear of the dark that casts our joy into the shadows.
~ Brene Brown

There are two major ways of defining “Tone” in photography.

Pity is they seem to get mixed up by under or over use.

Tone 1. The scientific measurement of the range of dark to light values in a photograph. Formally known as the Characteristic Curve.
The bane of photostudents in the days of filum, as it required astounding numbers of tests, peering through densitometers and calculations from log tables. Never a topic that people qued up to be the first in the door.

Tone 2.  The pictorial use of dark through light to help establish mood and emotion.  Light areas attract the eye, darker areas hold mystery.

Ms Brown, was no photographer, but out of her writings its possible to distill some fine photo-enhancing thoughts.

One of my fav photoshoppie, tool is the Circular Grad Tool. As best I can recall it didn’t make a Photoshop appearance until Photoshop 5 in 1998.
Highlight my subject.  Lighten for emphasis, Darken for mystery.   Use two, one for the subject and one for the backdrop and the eye of the viewer is both drawn and surrounded by the environment without losing the subject.  At least that’s the theory.

Funny how, even having taught the use of the tool, there is always just one more trick up its sleeve.
I was browsing the awesome book, THE DIGITAL NEGATIVE  by the equally awesome Jeff Schewe, (my copy is dog-eared and bursting with postalnotes.) and noticed a technique of resizing each individual side of the Grad Tool when it’s been drawn.  Oh, dear, how come I didn’t know that already.  Big grins.

As a lot of my current softer feel technique is based around the use of the tool, I was somewhat taken back that I hadn’t noticed this small technique.
For the interested, draw the grad as normal, hold down the Alt key and each of the ‘handles’ is independently moveable to match the need of the subject.
Simples.

I’d chosen this image sometime ago to match the good Ms Brown’s quote, so decided that it fitted well with the tonal series.  Bring out the best of the red and orange in her dress and keep the green behind muted and job is done.

Enjoy.

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.

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)

Tom Brown (Tracker) “Too often we walk in ignorance.”

“Empathy,” writes Jon Young, “is a dangerous word in science, because it taken to mean a less rigorous critical objectivity. “However I’ve noted over the years that those who succeed are those who adopt and empathetic point of view of their study of the birds.”

I rambled a bit last weekend about the importance of ‘the image’ and its affect on the viewers.

To balance that out, I think there is also an affect that happens to the maker. Sadly, not every photo we take is a “Gold Medal Winner.”  Some simply go straight to the big pixel bin in the ether.

But sometimes the photos express not only the feel of the maker, but also the importance of the moment that it was taken.

It’s not all about excellence in technique, the quality of the equipment, nor the visual impact.
Sometimes it’s simply that “I was there, and this is what I saw.”

We, EE and I have been monitoring a nesting pair of Sacred Kingfisher.

As the dear Mrs Beeton says of cooking a Hare, “First Catch your Hare.” Research would show that she wasn’t the first to use that statement in publication, that probably goes to Hannah Glasse, in how to cook a fish. But

I digress.

We had seen the presence of a Kingfisher along the river track, and EE was keen to see where they might be nesting.  We had been photographing Hobbies, with our friend, Neil A, when EE decided to move down the river and seek out the Kingfisher.

Half an hour later, a fateful text arrived. “I’ve found it.”.  Even the great Sherlock Holmes could figure out what ‘it’ was. So I farewelled Neil, and the Hobbies and went for a looksee.
“There”, she pointed. Quite economic of words when the occasion calls, is EE.

So over the next 3 weeks or so we’ve been watching the feeding of the young, and hoping for a quick glimpse to see how big, and how many.

They flew just over a week ago. Two perfect little birds.

Now on the wing, they would be even harder to locate.
By one of those happy co-incidences, there had been a fire in an old hollow tree.  The old skeleton was not only grey, but blackened.  Once the fire had been extinguished, it was necessary to cut down the tree to quench the embers within.
All this meant was a small area was flattened scrub with all the necessary Fire Response people at work.

It opened up the ground and the parent Kingfishers took their young down there to learn the finer points of hunting on the ground.

Eminently suitable for photography, and we sat on some of the burnt logs and watched the young explore the area, catch their first bugs, and rest on the downed limbs of the tree quite close to where we were sitting. They were so enthralled by the outside world that they took no notice of  us and gave us the wonderful opportunity to watch them at work, and to photograph them in a relaxed way for both bird and image maker.
Empathy.

Jon Young, “There has to be a moment from heart, spirit, soul and body.”
“Its about taking the time to tune-in, not just show up, but really tune-in—and learn a thing or two about what the birds already know.

Feeling and sharing “The Magic”

Open fields and paddocks are of course a mecca for various raptors. Around the Werribee River Park (aka The Office), Black and Whistling Kites, Swamp Harriers and Brown Falcons usually make frequent appearances.
Presently however because of better conditions further north perhaps, there is only a handful of  raptors in the area.

As the Australian Hobby clutch hatched and the young grew, the parents became much more pro-active, and protective of the growing young.  One morning they had several encounters with Swamp Harriers and Whistling Kites.

The female was now sitting out of the nest, high up on well sighted perch. Any raptor that approached recieved a serious warning call, and if that didn’t work, a much louder, more rapid call, that also drove her from the perch in hot pursuit.  The male would arrive, usually from on high, several moments later.

Unlike Peregrines, Hobbies seem to make much more shallow stoops, presumably they cannot really physically attack the much larger Kites, so a game of bobbing across the sky, with quick shallow dives on the intruder is probably to put it off the job in hand, and eventually drive it from the area.

Welcome to the action.

• Seriously you want to wander into my territory. Go ahead make my day.

• A Swamp Harrier defending against a stoop

• Here we go again. She is  rocketing out from among the trees. Warp Speed.

• A Whistling Kite trying to deal with two attacking Hobbies.

• Coming out of a stoop must really initiate a powerful ‘g’ force on the body.  From flat out to cruising in the blink of an eye.  You can see the angle of the wings changing and the air breaking over the back as the airflow changes.

• After all the action has quietened down, the male quickly returned with a  top-up meal.

• Hopefully see the young next week.