Jade Craven

Eurasian Coot Fight

September 11, 2014 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

One thing I’ve been doing lately is trying to teach Glenn about certain aspects of bird behaviour. I’m trying to help him develop a better instinct for what the birds are about to do. This way, he will have his camera trained on the right subject when they are about to do something interesting.

I had warned him about several of the waterbirds. “Keep an eye on them. They like to chase each other across the water – you can get some great shots!”

The following are a series of photos he took during July or August. I wasn’t there, but I love the detail in many of the shots.

Backyard Butcherbird

June 24, 2014 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

I’ve been doing the occasional twitch in the my backyard. I used to live in a very industrial area and now live in a leafy suburb near the river. It’s amazing to see the difference in wildlife.

Earlier this year, I captured a butcherbird eating a grasshopper. I love capturing photos of birds eating. I get butcherbirds in the backyard fairly often and love their call.

Family Day At Melbourne Zoo

June 6, 2014 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

It was the last full week of the holidays. Other then Apollo Bay, I hadn’t really done much with Seth. I eagerly jumped at the opportunity for a family trip to the zoo as I wanted to experiment with animal photography and, you know, do some bird perving. [Read more…] about Family Day At Melbourne Zoo

Jerringot in Autumn

May 2, 2014 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

Today, I was meant to go out for an hour with family. I called 2 hours beforehand to doublecheck the time and… it was cancelled. Everyone had forgotten to tell me. I was angry but then I realized. This frees up an afternoon! Jerringot, here I come!

I haven’t done much birding lately because I find wetlands to be boring when the water dries up and the waders leave. I was primarily going there to see crakes and rails, and had mostly dipped.

Lately, I’ve been realizing the importance of really getting to know a place. To learn how it changes with the seasons and monitor the ebb and flow of various species. Sometimes it will be generic but it will contribute to the birding community. It may be able to help someone, like the many birding bloggers and tweeters have helped me.

As predicted, it was a pretty generic visit

I got to the hide and there was nothing nearby. It was awesome to see that the water levels had risen considerably since last time. There were workers along the road cutting down trees, so I didn’t spend much time in the hide. I saw a fair about of spoonbills at the back so wandered over to the chair to have a look.

It was truly amazing to see so many spoonbills. There weren’t any at Balyang. I stayed here for a while, not daring to get closer in case I scared anything. This means that I didn’t get a clear view of the spot the pink eared duck favours.

(Random: a scaly breasted lorikeet has been sighted at Balyang. Now have to double check all photos!)

I was mostly testing out the sigma lens to see how it works at a distance and in different situations. It didn’t handle this shoot too well, I suspect that’s because I was shooting into the sun and hadn’t adjusted any settings. The kit lens can handle that sort of situation but this can’t.

I walked back, glad that the workers were gone. I saw this awesome web on the way back.

Glenn and I have been practicing photographing spiders webs recently and have gotten some beautiful shots. This one sucks, but it’s always something that fascinates me.

I went to the hide and saw a person there that I had been talking to on the Bird ID’ing facebook page. I’d seen his posts a few times and he told me about two swans that were there.

I didn’t get any photos but YAY! I wonder if these are the two swans that had babies here last year. Wouldn’t that be awesome? If so, what attracts them to this specific place? They tend to love this little area close to the road, at least last years pair did. He also told me that the pink eared duck was there, which I always love hearing about.

It’s always nice meeting other birders and chatting to them. It doesn’t happen much, but I love learning more about birds and seeing the different types of people. Nice seeing someone closer to my age!

Now to go through other birding photos x

Autumn Balyang

April 27, 2014 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

The past month has been crazily busy. I’ve barely had the chance to bird – let alone go on Seth and Aunty Jade adventures. It’s been brutal for everybody. Mum is busy caring for her very ill father, so Seth doesn’t get as much one on one time with his nan as he’d like.

They came up here this Thursday with the intention of having Seth and Nan bonding time. I appreciated this, as it gave me the chance to get some work done. On the Friday, though, we decided to go to Balyang. I hadn’t been there in months and was keen to see how it changed. And, Seth loves showing off his favourite spots to others.

We saw several darters in their usual spot near the bridge. Two nests had babies in them – so cute!

I was mostly there to test out the new telephoto lens that Glenn had bought. It’s brilliant for up close bird photography, but I’m still figuring out how to use it. I love the amount of detail we now get.

The Grebes

It was sunny, so we sat in the shaded area of one of our favourite spots. It was a bit disappointing. The water was very low and none of our favourite species were there. No spoonbills, herons or ibises. I looked out and saw something that didn’t look like it was a swamphen. I was very grateful for the lens when I snapped some photos of it, primarily for ID’ing purposes.

I asked on a Facebook group and it was ID’ed as a hoary headed grebe. Apparently the eye colour is a giveaway? It feels like I’ll never get the hang of this.

We walked a different way home. We went further along the barwon and up the ‘second set of stairs.’ I was keeping an eye out on the water, looking at the eurasian coots and swamp hens. Then I saw this!

“Seth. Look! I’m pretty sure that’s an Australasian Grebe!” He was excited too, as he’d never seen one before. I took the heavy lens, and the camera, out and snapped some photos. Then nearly died on the walk home as I have no tolerance when it comes to hills

This means that Sethy and I have seen all three Aussie species of grebes in the span of three days. On Wednesday, I had joined Seth and my parents for an appointment that we quickly found out was cancelled. We went to Eastern Beach for a short while so the mister could play in the playground.

I was fuming at how much time had been wasted that week. Mum, who was under a lot of stress, always brings up how she is under more pressure and has even less time then I do when I bring up how I don’t get the chance to do things for me as much. It’s even more important for me though as my anxiety symptoms worsen if I don’t do things that calm me down.

Seth was in the playground and I turned to look at the water. I saw the usual – a tern, a cormorant. We went for a walk and I noticed a darter that was really close.

It wasn’t a darter though. Look at the feathers around the head…. it’s a crested grebe! I had to check my bird book when I got home to be sure. Seth was pretty excited! Grebes have always eluded me so it has been fantastic to knock off two lifers in one week.

Back to Balyang. While I was excited to see a grebe, I was also a little bit forlorn because I didn’t see my good friend, the pink eared duck. Until Seth shouted at me ‘There’s the pink eared!’

The little dude was sitting at the bank close to us. A rare photographic treat! I told Sethy that it is also occasionally referred to as a zebra duck which, apparently, he already knew. Watching Steve Backshall is turning him into a smart-arse.

I only got a photo of this wattlebird because Seth pointed it out. I love how the photo turned out. Not bad for a cheap lens! I’m really excited to get to know it better.

Lorikeets

I saw two lorikeets sitting next to each other and tried to replicate a photo I saw on instagram by Echidna Walkabout. Not easy with a lens that ways 2kg and a wrist that is cramping something chronic.

I’m impressed with the lighting and bokeh achieved in this photo, though I don’t know how I did it. I followed up with two awesome pics of them flying off although I cropped their wings because I was zoomed in too close.

I would marry this lens.

Swamphens

I probably should visit Balyang more before I move. Great for practicing photography! Hopefully will get down to Ocean Grove Nature Reserve tomorrow for some more adventures.