We have a small break in the weather, and decided that a coffee at Werribee Mansion would be a good start, and a then a stroll around the gardens. Actually we were both secretly hoping that that the Yellow-tailed Black-cockatoos might still be there. But no such luck.
At the slowly draining lake in the gardens, the usual Great Egret and Little-pied Cormorant were in residence. Along with a young Australasian Darter, that seems to have taken up domicile in the tallest of the peppercorn trees by the lake.
Plenty of Superb Fairywrens and a lone Australasian Grebe, and we had a fine day to just relax and to put some practice in with the Nikon 1 gear and the superb 70-300mm zoom.
Must write a review on said lens.
Enjoy.
The Werribee Mansion in sunlight Nikon V1 10-100mm PD Zoom and a Polarising Filter ISO 140, f/5, 1/250, @22mm
Sometimes a diversion is just what the doctor ordered.
Nikon Aust, had invited us to an evening to drool over their new hardware, the D5 and the D500 cameras.
My mate Mr An Onymous has a D500 on order and was itching to get to play with the kit. So we accepted the invite, and also booked for EE to come along as well. But, due to numbers, one of us got ‘bumped’ to the following night, and in the end just Mr An and I made the journey. Just to hard to re-organise transport logistics due to Mr A O being on the next flight to Beijing in the morning.
The event was at the Auscarts Racing venue in Port Melbourne. And if you think about it, it was just about the right spot to give the Fast cameras a real workout. Low lighting, fast speeds, and the chance to get ‘trackside’.
Nikon worked it a treat. We pondered that it would be next to impossible to give 30 or more photographers a D5 or D500 and say, “Good luck enjoy the night”. That would sort of be mayhem. But what they did was organised mayhem. Well not even that. They had set up 8 or so ‘Stations’ where we could get to try different setups.
We decided on a quick trip to “The Office:”, needless to say the weather was looking less than kind, but our rationale was, it would be an easy to get home if the rain descended. And as soon as we turned off the bitumen on to the track leading in, we could see that rain, has indeed left its mark. Much of the roadway is either pot-holes, or great sheets of standing water.
We’ve been housebound because of the weather, and in the early afternoon, the sun shone, blue sky, and we decided to head to Twenty Nine Mile Road. Just for a look, and then a coffee on the way home. The Plant is Locked Out to mere mortals at the moment as the roads are a quagmire from the rains, the constant 4WD traffic, and that one of the number of bird watchers managed to put their ‘fourbee’ off the road and into a bog, requiring work by the management to get it out. So.
The weather forecast was loaded with gloom and doom, but we thought it was worth the risk just for the time out.
And we managed some good sunshine for about 30 minutes. And then a great big black cloud with a distinct grey sheet falling from it, headed in our direction. It was, as they say. All over.
And in the same direction a large raptor, which as it came closer was definitely a White-bellied Sea-eagle. It swung in on the wind, which even optimistically could be measured somewhere between 50-60kph. The rain was ripping in behind it. The bird landed, without a care on a roadway bund between two ponds. And with the rain pelting down it just sat and watched. A lone Samp Harrier had clued on that something was going to happen and was making various treks back and forth behind the eagle. We were stuck sitting in the car with the window open, and rain pouring in. Close window at least.
And it waited. It seemed to me the wind and the rain were increasing, but still it sat. And looked.
Then at what can only be described as ‘The height of the storm”. — or as poor old much maligned Edward Bulwer-Lytton “It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents — except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.” might have said.
The bird casually turned its body into the wind, raised the wings and lifted off. And to my real surprise, headed “into” the wind. Long deliberate beats that took it just over the water out along the pond.
Then it became clear through the rain.
A lone Eurasian Coot had taken that moment to make its run across the lake. Wrong move!
With the rain hammering at me as I swung open the door, and raced back along the road to get a clear look at the event, the eagle made several passes at the hapless coot, and then I lost it behind a clump of grass in between, and to be honest, the sting of the rain, the lack of wet protection for body and camera, and it was time to go back to the ‘safety’ of the car. EE had managed to get a better look of the eagle as it brought the coot to land.
But. Let’s face it. A long way away, drenching rain, no light, and buckets of contrast and colour and sharpening and noise reduction, and this a about as good as it gets.
I guess I make no apology for the images. At least we were there.
The power of the eagle is still haunting my thoughts. I was having trouble walking in that wind.
Thanks to EE for supplying the last moments of the action.
Locked on Target. That the D810 and the 300mm Locked on at all is much a tribute to the gear.Photo Courtesy EEPhoto Courtesy EEPhoto Courtesy EEPhoto courtesy EE
Some birds seem to me to evoke more involvement and emotional attachment than others. A big purple, Australasian Swamphen doesn’t get more than a glance, a cute-fluffy Pacific Black Duckling in its yellow and orange, trundling along behind mum gets ‘cute’.
And so to Brolga.
Perhaps it’s the sheer size of the bird? Perhaps it’s the mystic that seems to be attached to the bird both by new settlers and old inhabitants. Perhaps its the awesome majesty of the birds in dance, or their apparent concern for one another. It may also be that in the southern part of Australia, where once they roamed freely in huge numbers, they have been reduced to just a few hard-pressed birds in such small locations.
The Western Treatment Plant has been fortunate to have had a number of pairs in the area over the years and they have breed successfully, and also lost their clutch to such things as human stress on them, and from the feral foxes (are there non-feral?). Build and area that is fenced off to help them in their endeavour to bring on a clutch and inquisitive senseless humans advance over the fences, knock down the posts, trample the ground and in the end, the parents abandon the attempt.
Can start of one way, end the other. I’d a pretty busy day, what with bills to pay, doctors to visit, and of course the car. Well that needed to go service. So it did. Made and early start too, as it was foggy, yes foggy when I took off to the service centre.
However by the time I’d picked up the car in the mid afternoon, all the doom and gloom predictions of overcast, cold weather had slipped away with the cloud and we had a break of sunshine. “Let’s go for a quick look along The Twenty Nine Mile Road,” says EE. Twenty Nine is an extension inside the Western Treatment Plant that gives us good access to the paddocks without having to venture into the Plant proper.
Now my “Northern Exposure” readers probably think of evening as that lovely extended period they enjoy when the sun sets and it finally becomes dark. No such luck for us in my part of the Southern Hemisphere. Sunshine/Sunset Light/Dark. About as quick as that. So I wasn’t expecting much once the sun got very low on the horizon.
Until. A large grey cloud obscured the direct sunshine and a soft mellow light exuded around the cloud. Instant twilight.
And my old mate Orion—The Mighty Hunter, was out doing his even forage.
And now you’ll see why I really enjoy the options on the new Affinity Template.
Our story comes from Lassi Rautiainen, a wildlife photographer with a passion for documenting and conserving Finland’s large carnivores. Lassi brings people close to the wildlife he so admires and his efforts have positioned him as a key figure and pioneer in the field of Finnish photo tourism. He first developed a love of photographing bears in April 1978 when, perched in a tree, he hoped to capture photos of a bear who had killed an elk near where he sat. Bears captivated him, he says: so much so that they “took over my whole life.” He soon expanded to wolverines and eventually to wolves, writing books about all three, making observations and lecturing on these carnivores he so respected at international events and arranging photo safaris for nature-lovers.
See the Nikon Europe blog for the whole story and some awesome pictures.
Nestled on the coast, off the town of Werribee lies a birds paradise. The Water treatment plant of Victoria is a haven for many a wildlife species and has become a listed wetlands of significant international importance. I recently had the opportunity to visit and take photos(see me flickr). From a photographic point of view the light on the day was not great, a little overcast and bland with a touch of smoke wafting across the strait from the fires in Tasmania.
“For birders this place is the ducks guts”
Ducks in formation
Been standing in the corner Studying the lights The dreaming of escape Will keep you up at night
Away with me We don’t need words Close your eyes and see We’ll be birds Flying free Holding on in the mystery
The assignement is to add links to blogs I follow. To be blunt, I never thought of that before! So, it opens up who I have been following and what blogs I enjoy. So now instead of reducing the stuff on the Sidebar, it has Gotten BIGGER!!!
I’ve been able to add a section that has links to some blogs that I follow. You might find a gem or two in there.
A few will know I’ve been working on “Children of the Wind“. An idea born out of some Jon Young directions, but mostly an exploration of how as photographers we seek, find and enjoy new subjects, or new takes on old ones, or revisiting themes and styles from previous years, or looking at learning from, leaning on the masters of the past and how they in the ‘minds-eye’ expressed their feel to a subject.
You can see why its not going to be something I’m going to expand on too far or fast. Still.
I’ve always been fascinated by the way light melds across a subject. I’ve been know to drive 100’s kms to catch an early morning sun-rise or to sit for hours waiting for the evening light to throw across the stage and enhance the main subject with its golden goodness.
So just for this time, here is a change from birds.
It pays to be in the right place at the right time … the thing is, that when you are, it’s often a complete fluke!
Sunday afternoon out on the plains, I was watching a male White-fronted Chat, perched on a gate. This same spot is often a good place to observe Zebra Finches and I’ve seen a Black Falcon on more than one occasion.
Male White-fronted Chat, Moolort Plains, 10th January 2015.
Suddenly the chat and a bunch of other small birds scattered in all directions as a dark shape propelled into sight, at eye-level, along the fence-line.
Fence-line with Gorse and Tree Violet.
An immature Peregrine Falcon, one of the world’s swiftest birds in level flight, headed directly towards me and then banked abruptly to reveal its wonderfully patterned undercarriage. This hunting technique is typical of falcons and very often successful – this time the chat and its companions…
Time to add another chapter to the Complete Guide for “Sneaking” up on a Swamp Harrier.
By now we have established some golden rules to ‘sneaking’ up on a Swamp Harrier.
For those who skim read, here they are.
Rule 1. You Don’t Sneak up on a Swamp Harrier.
Rule 2. None known in the universe.
We adopted a new technique the other evening. Find a spot to park, setup chairs, open picnic basket, ignore Swamp Harriers. Actually the real reason of course for the visit was the ever elusive White-bellied Sea-eagle.
The tide, Mr An Onymous had revealed to me in a private conversation was a low-low tide around sunset.
Armed with this vital piece of data, EE and I decided a picnic evening meal watching the sun set over other bay would be as good as any reason to travel down to the WTP, so as the Banjo has often been quoted. We went.
To Picnic Point. Well its actually 175W Outflow and there is a big blue sign there warning of E coli and all sorts of other nasties, (but not about Swamp Harriers), but for the sake of the exercise we’ll call it Picnic Point from here on.
The technical term, low-low tide means this is one of those tides that makes those funny tidal graphs drop really low on the page. And it means in practice that the water level drops dramatically and reveals the mud/sand flats out several hundred metres. With such exposed areas, the small shore birds, (waders), come in their tens of thousands to gobble up as much rich food as they can.
And because of that low-low tide, the Sea-eagle can patrol looking for an easy snack, either to take alive, or to find carrion. Its an either/or for said Sea-eagle, and if all goes well, from our Picnic Point, it will patrol along the mudflats in great light, in close and will do some really clever Sea-eagle activity and we’ll get some good images.
Which of course as you can see leads us to sneaking up on Swamp Harriers.
Not to be out done the Clever Brown Bird has also worked out the low-low tide might just bring it the snack it so deserves.
We are hull down among the bushes. The Swamp Harriers patrol through the scrub.
From previous chapters, its pretty obvious to me that the Swampie has the area well and truly mapped. Nothing is a surprise to the average head-down hunting bird. There is no “Oh look a fox killed duck, I might just swoop down and pick it up”. No, it knows the carcass is there, because it wasn’t there the time before. And humans, well they either drive around in circles or are large blobs standing against the horizon and easily spotted and avoided.
And for those fortunate souls picnicking at Picnic Point, well they stand out among the bushes as much as anything and from a distance can also be avoided. Needless to say, based on these facts. We didn’t get a close encounter with a Harrier all evening. But. We did see a Sea-eagle.
Still the weather was kind.
Enjoy
Head down, comparing the present information with the stored dataNothing escapes that radar gazeOh, look, humans, they weren’t there before. Turn awayHumans. Turn awayTurning away in the evening light. Our presence didn’t come as a surprise to this bird, it simply continued its business along another track.The elusive, White-bellied Sea-eagle made several runs along the low-low tidal flat. For some reason it was carrying grass from a previous swoop.
Today we have been challenged with looking at the theme for the blog and trying out several other themes from the 100s that WordPress has to offer.
Well, I’m passing on this too.
Long term, suffering Bloggettes will know that I’ve tried a number over the past few months and not one has given me the options that the old “redundant” ithemes site Id been using to display the picture stories.
So straight to the story.
House Renovation. Cormorant style.
We visited Balyang Sanctuary in Geelong, and found that the Cormorants and a few Darters were still at work on nesting.
One particular pair of enterprising Little Black Cormorants had taken over an abandoned nest and were in the process of adding a new floor, kitchen, dining room and baby room. Well not really, but they were adding branches to the already large nest.
I guess she stays at home and straightens things out, while he goes out to Bunnings and shops for new additions. Well it all worked well for him, until he secured a large branch, which he ended up with in the water, still clutching. Simple, flap the wings, run a bit and take off.
Wrong
The weight of the leaves and branches in the water was more than his lifting ability. Time to rethink the strategy.
So.
Run faster, flap more often and get the branch caught in your wing, and sink back into the water. But. Don’t let go of the branch.
Well, that didn’t work, and don’t think your average Cormorant isn’t on to this. Next plan. Run faster, flap faster and deeper, jump into the air and bounce like a springboard along the water. That should do it.
Wrong.
Time to rethink the strategy.
Swim in circles a few times, just so everyone thinks you are in control. Also think that during that time there was a bit of adjustment to the grasping of the branch. Letting go of the branch is no longer an option. If he has to stay there till midnight, that branch is not going to get out of his possession. No siree Bob.
New plan. Face into the wind. Wait for the strongest wind, run faster, jump up a lot, flap twice as hard, bounce on the water, spring into the air, get those branches out of the water to reduce drag…
You could almost see the smile on his face as he furiously flapped and jumped and gradually rose into the air. Once airborne it was all a piece of cake to fly into the nest and proudly display his latest acquisition.
What about wide-screen TV in the corner, he chortled.
Enjoy.
#2 Time to readjust the branch and head into the wind#3 One flap, two jumps, the branch is almost clear of the water#4 Another Jump, another flap, speed coming up#5 One more jump and flap just about should do it#6 All clear of the water and on the way.#7 Banking it the wind, well up to speed.#8 Won’t she be pleased with this. Wings working to wash off speed.
Today I did spend some time to search for cat quotes. I found hundreds of them but wrote down my favorite ones. What I like about quotes is that they are often so true. I wanted to create a list of the best cat quotes as I never done something similar on my blog. This is not only a list of funny cat quotes, they are additionally also brutally true quotes and some of them really made me laugh. Hope you will enjoy the list, hope it will make you smile too…
1. Time spent with cats is never wasted. Sigmund Freud
2. As every cat owner knows, nobody owns a cat. Ellen Perry Berkeley
3. Any household with at least one feline member has no need for an alarm clock. Louise A. Belcher
4. Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a purpose. Garrison…
With most of the scientific names of Australian birds derived from Latin or Greek words, it’s great to come across one that recognises the language of indigenous Australians. Berigora is the Aboriginal name for the Brown FalconFalco berigora, a common raptor of the plains country around Newstead. This individual allowed me within ten metres yesterday afternoon – it was using the fence line for perches from which to chase grasshoppers and was not that keen to move far in late afternoon heat. What a beautiful raptor!
Brown Falcon near Walker’s Swamp, Moolort Plains, 1st January 2016.
Birds as Poetry —— Just because I WANDER doesn't mean I'm LOST 