red wattlebird

Balyang: 24/11/2015

December 1, 2015 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

I’m just going to use dates rather then come up with creative titles for my Balyang visits. I’m just there so darn much. Fortunately, I’ll probably only be visiting for another couple of weeks. I’ll still continue to go to mums and explore the Barwon, just not as the pace I’ve been currently doing.

This current birding project has actually been incredibly exhausting!

Anyway, I was photographing these cockatoos below because I thought the increased number of birds meant I had a better chance of getting a poop shot. I didn’t notice until later that one of them had fruit in its mouth!

I got these generic house sparrow shots while waiting for it to do something else. I’ve learned from experience that they don’t give any warning beforehand! It is an interesting challenge, trying to get lovely photos of them.

There was a lot of young people feeding bread to the birds there, which was annoying. I’m too shy to say anything at this point.

This swamphen saw a silver gull land with a large piece of bread and decided that it wanted some! 🙂 It kinda looks like a dinosaur here.

These long billed corellas were grooming each other and then had a nap. Not from a great angle, but that was because I was lying down on the ground photographing lorikeets.

I nearly got shat on several times while trying to get photos of lorikeets doing the same thing. I had a couple of near misses when trying to get the shots.

I spent ages just watching about 10 of them fly around above me. I got to get a very close look at the colours of their tail. I probably shouldn’t dismiss them as a photographic subject so quickly.

Finally, the red wattlebirds are still working hard feeding their chicks. They have been a consistent background call for the past 6 weeks or so.

As mentioned, it has been an exhausting month. At least 10k+ photos taken at this one location, all of which is painstakingly documented. I definitely wont be doing it again next year. However I’ve learned so much. I’ve got so many questions to seek answers for, which I’ll be doing when things slow down. I can start working on guides for certain birdwatching locations.

It has also taught me so much about managing anxiety and birding with patience. I’ll definitely be writing more about that late.

Birding at the You Yangs Western Plantation

October 25, 2015 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

On Friday, Carolyn contacted me to see if I wanted to go birding. Did I ever! I was hoping to go somewhere that day but had been trying to figure out what adventure would cause me the least amount of stress. I was tossing up between the stormwater harvesting lake, and Mcleods Waterhole, when I got her message.

Saved!

Turned out Saturday was a bad anxiety day so it was really nice to be in the bush. I met Carolyn at Lara train station at 9am and we headed towards Western Plantation.

I don’t believe I’ve been here before. I’ve had no reason to. There are a lot of horse riders there and it isn’t the type of environment I’d usual explore. That is probably what makes it so good.

I got two lifers in this location – the first being the below jacky winter. I have no idea how people can tell what it is and will be putting it on the list of birds to look into later. Regardless, it was a lovely surprise.

I also got a lifer with this horsfields bronze cuckoo. Some people had suggested that I had seen one at Paradise Picnic Ground, but were unable to definitively say so due to my poor quality photos. This lovely one was incredibly coorporative – and also signals the need for me to take photos in raw! Carolyn was lovely and able to explain the differences in calls to me, which is one of the easier ways to tell them apart. We did hear a shining one later on but I was too knackered to track it down.

Plenty of dusky woodswallows there. I was keeping an eye out for white browed, mostly because people say they have seen them in the region, but no luck. I feel weird asking about them sometimes, like all I care about are lifers, but really I’m just trying to piece together all these random bits of information.

Then we saw a rainbow bee eater! Which oddly has a call that sounds a bit like a frog. I thought it was weird I heard frogs in a dried creek bed. The photo is meh but I don’t care, it is always worth seeing them again. I’d love to be able to photograph them at length and get one of the photos of them with an insect or bug in their mouth. Even better – I’d love Glenn to photograph that!

It seemed like they were inspecting a nest – I got a photo of one of their butts coming out of this hollow in the side of the river bed. I never knew they nested like that 🙂 It’s awesome. I was confused as to why the birds here seemed to be nesting later then the ones at Balyang…. until it was pointed out that Balyang has a continuous water source. Some things take a while to sink in.

Red wattlebird

I struggled to figure out what this was, I was hoping it was one of the many honeyeaters I haven’t seen that like to hang out at the You Yangs. I figured out it was a wattlebird when I saw the mother feeding it. I’ve gotten a number of photos like this in the past, and am still seeing wattlebirds being fed, but I thought it was lovely.

Rufous Whistler

I was also fortunate enough to see, and photograph, a male and female rufous whistler. I never get sick of seeing these. It was great to get such clear photos contrasted against the background; it really helps me see the details of various markings.

Final bird? Sacred kingfisher! There were other birds here but the kingfisher was especially awesome. I hadn’t seen one in ages.

I highly recommend coming here for birdwatching. Would love to return here with Sethy. Warning: It IS snake season. We were lucky but we did see a tiger snake about a metre from the path.

Glenns Barwon River Birthday Ramble

October 29, 2014 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

On Monday it was Glenns birthday. We had originally planned to go to Melbourne to do some photography but the stormy weather had other plans. We didn’t fancy going to the zoo and botanical gardens in drizzly weather so chose to stick around Geelong.

Glenn, however, decided that the day was conspiring against him and didn’t see the point in going anyway. I persuaded him to go. We had a bit of a tiff where I told him that he was choosing to be in a funky mood and he could still have a good day if he wanted. We decided to walk to Queens Park bridge so he could try to photography the baby honey eaters.

Honeyeaters

He had a lot more success then I did when it came to getting photos. The tripod helped, as did the fact we were there mid afternoon. He was fascinated at how the act of feeding was over with so quickly. There would be nothing for a long period and you had to be so quick to get the action shot. It was such a challenge, but he did really well.

I think they were close to fledging. One of them was moving about on a branch next to the nest. The parents were working so hard.

Buckley falls

The birding past Queens Park bridge was pretty uneventful. No kingfishers this time, nor the elusive crested shrike tit. Glenn had an opportunity to practice photographing red rumps once we got to the golf course.

A facebook contact had observed a night heron in the area. Another Facebook friend had gotten some great photos of a heron feeding. I wanted Glenn to try to get some more photos of herons.

The feeding photos weren’t great, but the wind helped make the photographs more interesting. Glenn said he thought there was three herons in the area.

Black Cormorants

I’m proud of how Glenn is able to ID birds now. He asked if a darter was a type of cormorant. I said no and handed him my field guide. I asked him to point out the differences in the birds. “Oh, they are shaped differently and the beak isn’t hooked.” He then looked further down the page and pointed at the black cormorants. “These are the ones we saw. I recognize the wings.”

I didn’t intend for Glenn to get as nerdy as he has, but I like how he now understands the importance of knowing how the bird will behave. His photography has improved so much as a result.

I told Glenn about how bad my agoraphobia has gotten and how much I’m struggling. He said “you enjoy birdwatching, don’t you?” and I told him that all trips were a struggle. He’s encouraged me to back to the doctor so…. we’ll see what happens. Also will be moving over the next few months. Will really miss the area – but will be happy to be close to a different bus line!

Birding along the Stan Lewis Walk

October 25, 2014 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

Yesterday, I went for a walk along the Barwon River. I’d been trying to do more birding but had been finding it very difficult to go birding, get work done and get everything else done. I think it’s more of a sign that I’m struggling with anxiety then anything else. Regardless, when it cooled down to below 25 degrees yesterday afternoon I was outta there.

My main goal was to see a crested shrike tit, a bird that has been eluding me for some time. I have a contact on facebook that is always getting interested photos around the Queens Park area so decided to get more familiar with the area myself – despite my discomfort.

I was a short distance from home when I saw a mud lark in water that was near a drain. I remember thinking “That would be a good area for other birds to hide.” And then I saw this rail!

I was so shocked. The connection to my lens was faulty so it was hard to get a photo in time. And, then I saw that there was two of them! I’ve seen one before at Werribee zoo (it was a wild one that had made it’s home there.) But this…. do you know how long I’ve been looking for bloody crakes and rails at belmont common? I was fairly certain this was a buff banded rail, and I was right. It was such a lovely surprise. They weren’t there on the way back, though.

Baby Wattlebirds

A recent fascination of mine has been getting photos of baby birds in their nest. This is partially thanks to the same Facebook friend, and because Glenn loves the challenge. I prefer to look at them from a distance whereas Glenn loves getting photos. So, when I saw this, I had to get photos for Glenn. I actually phoned him up and he urged me to stay there and get more photos instead of walking further along to Buckley Falls.

The behaviour was interesting. Both parents would take turns in feeding them. They would only be at the nest ever so briefly to feed them, which made photography rather difficult.

The lens, which is temperamental, had trouble focusing quickly enough. I didn’t know the right settings. I didn’t have the tripod. I did the best I could in such circumstances. Normally I’d just encourage Glenn to get the photo. On Monday it is his birthday and we are going away to Melbourne for a photography nerd-out at the zoo. It’s unlikely he’d have time to get the shots for a while unless he wanted to come over mid week and spend $50 on taxi fares. I’ll see if we can find a way. Nonetheless, it was up to me to get the shot.

I think I got a couple of good ones. They certainly aren’t great and I’m not proud of them but they were the best I could do. The path was a bit busy and I was trying to keep my distance from the birds. I think we have a good month left to capture interesting bird breeding behaviour. We’ve had a good run considering neither of us drive and we aren’t really part of a community.

Other observations:

I had to get this photo for Glenn. Another obsession is birds feeding. I didn’t know if this was collecting a worm for a baby, but I didn’t want to go into it’s space.

I did notice four rabbits along the river which made me sad. I don’t think we are every going to win the fight when it comes to conserving native wildlife. I primarily took this photo to show my nephew, have no idea why the eye looks so weird.

I’ll be writing a couple of other updates over the weekend from birding trips during the last month. I’m struggling with anxiety so the tone will be a bit flat. Still, have made some interesting observations and have ventured further then normal.

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.