silver gull

Cacatua Galore-ita at Balyang Sanctuary

September 1, 2015 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

Technically the title of this post is a useless pun. See, Galahs used to be classified under the ‘cacatua galerita’ – the same genus that corellas and cockatoos used to belong to. Then it all got reclassified. So, the above is a play on words that only cockatoo nerds AND word nerds will get. Aren’t I a ‘hoot?’

Anyway, Sethy and I went to check out Balyang Sanctuary a short while after getting back from Eastern Beach. It was a lovely day and I wanted to suss out whether there was any breeding/nesting behaviour going on or any baby birds. Basically, I was doing investigative work for Glenn.

There wasn’t much of that going on – so no need for us to go out to the other side of town. However there were a lot of cockatoos.

Cuddling Corellas

I looked up and was fortunate to see these two corellas canoodling. I was hoping it may lead to mating behaviour but it was just kissing. The photo quality turned out crap, it needed a lot of editing just to get to this point, but I believe the birds themselves are adorable.

Cockatoos in a hollow

I was fortunate enough to find cockatoos apparently preparing a nest. They were very, very defensive. I didn’t see them chuck much bark out so the images are a bit meh. Still thought it was interesting.

Then there are the generic other images one gets when the light is awesome and the birds are settling down. It was a mediocre shoot – I’m not really sure it’s worth me going back there other then when I’m with Seth.

Gannets and Corellas at Eastern Beach

August 6, 2015 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

You’ve probably already figured out that Eastern Beach has become my new haunt. There are lots of places on this side of town, and in Melbourne, that I’m keen to explore. However, Eastern Beach is a great place to take either of the boyfriends, knowing that they can happily spend a few hours here and enjoy themselves. There is more going on then at Balyang.

Yesterday, Glenn said he was going to go down to Eastern Park to try and replicate some of my bat photos. I told him that he should probably go to Eastern Beach first. I mostly suggested it because I thought he could learn a lot trying to photograph the grebes and cormorants .

When we got there we were in for a surprise. There was a gannet and it was the closest I’ve ever seen to the shore. I’ve gone to photograph them, what, 10 times now in varying weather? I’d never seen them that close to shore. Perhaps it was the spotty rain but damn I was jealous of Glenn. I had to sit there and watch while he got to have all the fun.

He had the same focusing issues that I did, despite the birds proximity. We still struggled with the medium kit lens. Glenn was clearly frustrated and wasn’t too keen to look at the photos when we got home.

Fortunately, I have the experience to look at the photos on a computer screen before completely wiping off the shoot. The photos aren’t as clear as I’d like but I still think he got some magnificent photos. Many are better then the ones I’ve gotten! I think one of the birds may be a juvenile.

I love gannets and hope to be able to improve my photography of them, as well as find places to get closer photos.

Other birds

There was a definite emphasis on the gannets – mostly due to how close they were! Many other birds were hunkered down and being boring due to unpredictable rain.

I love the below photo of the seagull. Not too fond of the other ones Glenn got – I think they are too generic unless something is particularly interesting about their behaviour.

He did get some awesome photos of the terns, below. I think he could have gotten better ones if he didn’t stop too look at the back of the screen constantly. Something is playing funnybuggers with our camera and we can never tell if the photos are clear or not, so I don’t blame him. He misses out on heaps of opportunities though.

Above is a photo of the tail of the hoary headed grebe during the dive. I really wish Glenn had the patience to explore this theme in photography but don’t blame him, the weather was abysmal.

I really do think I’ve taught him enough to get good bird photography here. He has always been skilled but never noticed a lot of the stuff about birds. He’s at the zoo today and commented that “I never would have known all these bird names if not for you!”

I’m trying to teach him how to watch the behaviour so he knows how to predict what will happen next. I want him to learn how to move quickly when an opportunity presents itself and also how to be patient to wait for all the elements of a photo to line up. I believe these skills would really serve him well in street photography.

And he is learning. I love it.

Corella Nesting Behaviour

We were about to leave when I looked up. “Glenn! There’s two corellas up there!” We watched them for a little bit when we realized that they were displaying the same type of nesting behavior that we saw at Balyang recently. I don’t know whether this behaviour is specific to cockatoos/parrots or even birds of the cacatua genus.

We were there for about 15 minutes and couldn’t get any photos of the corella with bits of the tree in its mouth. I’m still impressed with the photos Glenn got. It was fascinating to see.

Still not overly interested in photographing white cockatoos but still, it was fun.

Bird photography Adventures at Eastern Beach

July 4, 2015 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

It was Wednesday morning. I didn’t really feel like unpacking anymore of my stuff and kinda felt in the mood to take some photos. Sethy and I had gone to Eastern Beach a couple of days earlier so I suggested we go there. It seemed a lot easier then battling crowds at the zoo!

Birding and photographing with Sethy can be difficult. Sometimes I want to stay somewhere and photograph something because the water is super still or the lighting is awesome. Alas, a certain six year old wants to look for fish or go to the playground. I promised myself I’d return later to get photographs on my own pace. On Wednesday, I thought that Glenn going would be a good compromise. He’s a brilliant photographer and would have the long lens. I wouldn’t be able to do many photographs but I’d have more control over the shoot.

It may not have worked out as planned, but I still had a pretty fun twitch.

We ended up catching a taxi into town and walking past Cunningham Pier towards Limeburners Point. It wasn’t as active as it was the other day. It was overcast and windy, and most of the birds seemed to be less active. I had wanted to try to replicate some of the hoary headed grebe photos I had taken previous.. but it wasn’t coorporative.

Glenn loved the opportunity to get seagull photography. I’m normally not interesting in getting photos of them because I find there behavior to be boring. Glenns approach is getting a great photo of a boring bird, where as I’m more interesting in getting a bad photo of interesting behaviour. Glenn got some lovely photos of gulls and I’ll be encouraging him to do so in the future but it kinda reminded me why I don’t do birding photography with him 😛 Get too frustrated

There were a couple of gannets flying around, although they weren’t coping too close to shore. I got this photo because I thought the wings were in an interesting position. I have no idea why they will come close one day, and be considerably further away the next. Is there an ideal time of the year to find them? Also, is there a place we can be guaranteed to see them pretty close to shore? (I’m thinking about a nesting location near Portland. It’s going to be something I’ll look into.

Glenn loved this photo and was experimenting with cropping. He ended up doing a similar crop this this, which is something I wouldn’t have considered. This is why I loved sharing these experiences with Glenn, even if it frustrates the heck out of me.

Terns

I haven’t seen terns diving like this for a long time. We struggled to get decent photos of them as they would dive down quickly, but turn upwards to cancel the dive. We missed the shot moreso then got it. Glenn wanted to try it on sports mode but I think we may have gotten better results with manual. It’s definitely something to research. A friend of Glenns recommended that we try manual focus but they are too fast for that. In that respect, I’m very thankful for my bird photography community.

We did manage to get some very clear photos, which is awesome.

The promenade

The tern photos were taken near the promenade. Sadly though, this area wasn’t anywhere near as fruitful as it was for me and Sethy on the previous visit. The water was murky and the grebes were further away. We got some awesome photos of a pacific gull though!

Thankfully I pointed it out, as Glenn struggles to tell them apart from normal seagulls. I was so upset when a pacific gull flew past and he didn’t even get the camera. (He was similar with the gannets). He pointed out later that he was colour blind so couldn’t really see the red tip on the bill. I was all “but there are so many OTHER differences”. He learned that soon enough, though.

Limeburners Point

This area has been awesome for finding birds in the past but today was kinda dull. All the birds were hunkering down. I probably should have looked at the weather before leaving!

We were so lucky though. We found this pacific gull eating a fish head while seagulls were hanging out. Glenn was able to get his ‘money shot’ and got some brilliant photos. I would have loved to have got photos of these guys with Glenns lens, as I interpret stuff differently. So stoked that he was able to enjoy it though.

I also found two pied oystercatchers, something I don’t think I’ve seen there before? The coloring looked a bit weird initially but I think that it is moreso that one oystercatcher was sitting in such a way its head looked like a tern.

Glad we went, because I got some more photos for the blog and learned more about the questions I wanted to ask about certain birds and photography. It’s one of those twitches are a bit boring at the time but will help me down the track.

We went to the botanical gardens to look for spinebills and dipped. Hoping to go back there, either by myself or with Glenn/mum. I also twisted my ankle on this adventure which didn’t really hit me until a couple of hours and kms later. 🙂

Yucky Mucky Balyang

October 28, 2014 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

We were meant to be in Melbourne today. We woke up this morning, took one look at the weather and cancelled both our plans AND the back up plan of Aireys Inlet. It was windy, spitting and a bad day for photography.

We made plans to go to Balyang later in the day and, sensing shitty weather, went back to bed for a sleep in. Well, I did.

I woke up at 11ish to a bed that had just me and the cat. Glenn was out and wasn’t answering his phone.

The butthead had gone to Balyang without me! It was fine. He assured me that birdlife was boring and that he wanted to practice taking photos of birds in flight. Normally I wouldn’t share them, unless they showed interesting behaviour. But I really enjoyed the shots from this session.