welcome swallow

Young Welcome Swallow In Apollo Bay

January 20, 2016 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

Sethy has taken up fishing. Scratch that, the little dude LOVES fishing. I found out that the marina in Apollo Bay is a popular place for families to go fishing. I also discovered that I find fishing to be extremely tedious.

Instead of accompanying the little dude, I went for a bit of a wander around the area close to the main beach. The birds here are subtly different to the ones we get in Geelong. There are more silvereyes and European goldfinches. I was walking along the road where the geese and blackberries are when I come across this young welcome swallow. The lighting wasn’t ideal, but I loved being able to get such crisp detail. Pay particular attention to the gape.

The school holidays mean that Apollo Bay is busy, but it also makes it a great time to find younger birds. You don’t even have to wander far to see them!

If you are exploring the marina, make sure to look out for sting rays. There are some giant, friendly ones that hang around!

Glenn testing out the new lens at Eastern Beach

September 24, 2015 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

I know, I know. My post titles are just getting even more awesome.

We’d had the new lens for about 6 days as of Yesterday. I tested it out the day I got it, despite being pretty crook. Glenn has had an exhausting work week so didn’t have a chance to check it out until yesterday. Naturally, this made me pretty antsy. I hate it when the camera is going unused, even when I’m unable to go anywhere.

We did the usual, with me saying random observations in between coughing fits. Like me, he started with the welcome swallows.

I quite like this one, as the feathers on its chest was kind of puffed out. I would like to go back and spend a while photographing the swallows, or finding other places to capture them. I tend to overlook them in favour of other species. Glenn doesn’t.

He too was able to get a photo of the bird calling, and his photo was heaps better then mine. I’m looking forward to seeing what Glenn can do with this bad boy.

I managed to get this photo while Glenn was in the gentlemans room. Alas, irony didn’t decide to have a dolphin show up at that very moment. That would have been hilarious.

We were fortunate enough to see this tern flying near the promenade. The tracking was pretty hit and miss, although that could partially be because we had it on the wrong camera setting – and the bird moved faster then the gannet! Regardless, I was stoked. I haven’t seen a tern there in ages.

A lot of the photos turned ‘terned’ out blurry but still, quite fond of the ones Glenn got.

Glenn being the artistic nerd that he is. I really wanted to check out the nest to see if the chicks had hatched and, if they had, wanted to get photos from a respectful distance. They hadn’t – which is fortunate as I’m going away for a few days on a holiday. Will have to check them twice a week when I get back 🙂

Gannet

Obviously, the gannet was one of the main reasons I wanted Glenn to test out the lens. The other lens just wouldn’t focus and both of us would get really frustrated at all the shots we missed.

We managed to get lots of interesting and clear shots of this gannet diving. At one point it caught a fish – I could visibly see it! But Glenn wasn’t focusing on the bird, he was looking to check the photo quality.

I totally understand why as I’d told him that most birds swallowed the fish before surfacing. I haven’t seen them eating a fish in weeks, especially at that closeness. It was diving a fair bit close to where we were.

The photos don’t really need much commentary – I’ve seen this behaviour so many times before. I love seabird photography though. I’d love to go on a pelagic with Glenn.

Going to Apollo Bay for a few days. You jealous? I can tell, you totally are 🙂 ROCKPOOLS HERE I COME!

Testing out the new lens at Eastern Beach

September 1, 2015 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

Guess what? WE HAVE A NEW LENS FOR GLENNS CAMERA!

We’ve been having trouble with our sigma lens for some time. I don’t know whether it was us, or a fault, but it just wasn’t doing a good job. It struggled with birds in flight, I never had any chance. If the bird was still then you just had to cross your fingers and hope you got a good one.

In July, we went to Werribee Treatment Plant and I was able to test out a friends lens. It was fast! The quality was clear. And it was affordable!

When cropped, the image were superior to the Sigma photos. I made the decision then to buy one as soon as possible.

Glenn, of course, needs more time then me to make a decision. Eventually, it was Thursday of last week. I was at the Post Office, picking up the lens. Shortly after, I was at the beach testing it out.

Just using this welcome swallow image to have a break in the story 😛 As as soon as I got to the beach, my jaw dropped.

ANOTHER DOLPHIN!

Last month, Sethy and I were at Eastern Beach and we saw a dolphin. It was the first one I had seen in years but I didn’t have a camera on me at the time. I made the best of a bad situation.

This time, I RUSHED to get the new lens out of its box and out of the camera. I ran, wheezing, after the dolphin fast as I could. It was rather difficult as I was half way through a cold and had been struggling to breath.

I made it onto the pier. It was at a distance, but I was confident I could get one or two clear snaps. I fired off about 30. Then I remembered.

I hadn’t put the memory card in the camera. When I got there, my focus was more on finding a loo (which I found later.)

Oops!

It was a hilarious but fascinating experience. The weather was worse then the last time I saw the dolphin but there was maybe 1-2 gannets diving around it.

I was disappointed but also too sick to really care. After I had called Sethy and Glenn (in that order), I got on with the very difficult task of testing out the lens.

It does focus quickly, which is a major plus. Glenn and I were starting to detest the other lens. I struggled to get it to focus where I wanted to. That is understandable as it was the first time using it and I may have been hyperventilating over a dolphin. I took the above photos to try and get a shot of it singing, but also to show the detail of it’s feathers and markings.

It’s a beautiful bird. Glenn enjoys getting photos of them. I’ll try and see how I can help him get even better ones!

The next goal was to try testing it on the gannets. I assumed there would be more, given the weather. There was one that was flying over so I tried shooting it.

The lens focused rather quickly but, as you’ll see, only one part of the bird was super sharp. That is understandable as it was a test run and I wasn’t refocusing as the bird was moving. Perhaps it would be easier if I hadn’t zoomed in so close?

There were times when I was lucky and got a pretty sharp image of the bird.

It did lead to some interest blurred shots and I’d love to photograph it.

From a distance though it seemed to get a bird in focus, and really crisp detail.

It struggled a bit when I moved quickly from the bird in flight to getting a shot of this cormorant eating. Compeltely understandable as I moved ‘whoooosh!’ rather quickly. There was no way in heck the previous camera could have focused this quickly. The other photos didn’t work out.

This is awesome. It means Glenn and I can sit down and just watch birds in the way, and be confident we can get super clear shots of them diving and eating. Glenn has the lens right now. 🙁 I want to test it again.

It did a really clear shot of this welcome swallow singing, something we wouldn’t have been able to get before. We could have with the kit lenses but not this good.

Only took this because it is the type of shot that Glenn loves.

This is the bird as it was about to dive. The lens struggled with these type of shots, as the bird was a fair distance away and the weather was horrid.

But then you look at the clarity of the shots of the birds once they have resurfaced. DAMN! WOW. What the?

Look at the water ripples spreading from the bird.

A cormorant looking at us funny.

Random photo while I was phoning Glenn.

Overall:

The lens is a Canon EF-S 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 IS. I was pretty impressed with it. It makes life so much more convenient for us. Before, we could have to take the two kit lenses plus the zoom. Now we just have to take one.

It is about $400 less then the Sigma. I don’t think that was necessarily a bad purchase, as it probably would still come in handy in some situations. We know we have a decent chance of getting the shot now. It means we can be so much more confident. And it can work in a variety of photography situations. We’re pretty stoked.

Glenns friend checked it out and was impressed, saying it was sharp. I don’t know if the other lenses were as sharp in comparison.

Now to convince him to upgrade his Canon body! The 600D has been brilliant, but a friend lent him a much better one and it performed magnificently in low light situations. I’d love for Glenn to get one sooner rather then later and see how it impacts on his street photography. He says he wants to get to know the lens on the current body first.

Then there is my selfish desire to get both an underwater camera and a macro lens 😛 I want to catch different types of wildlife on film. I think we’ll focus on Glenns stuff at first, at least. The plan WAS to get back into the hiking 🙂

Seth + Truganina: Part 2

February 23, 2015 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

Last Wednesday, I decided to take Seth birding. I didn’t particularly want to take him anywhere but he had been having a rough couple of days, and we hadn’t adventured in over a week. I decided to go to Truganina because I really wanted him to see the banded stilt, and I couldn’t be bother thinking of anywhere else to go.

That’s the type of adventure you get if you wake me up early by playing bird calls on your ipad. I need more prep type for adventuring.

Unfortunately, I didn’t realize until we got to Laverton that many trains from Werribee are express on weekdays and we’d need to take THREE trains to get to the swamp.

Oops. He did okay considering the 6 trains we caught – and the drunk guy at one of the stations!

What did we see?

We hadn’t even gotten to the swamp when we saw this Australian Hobby. I wasn’t 100% sure of the ID, but the behaviour was similar to the one I had seen at WTP earlier in the week. I couldn’t say for sure so promised Seth we would look it up when we got home.

I had settled ID because of the colour and size of the bird. The guide said I should also check Peregrine falcon as the birds can often be confused. I just didn’t think that it was one. The wings weren’t stiff enough, it was flying pretty low to the ground. People in the bird ID group tentatively agreed with me… which is good enough for Seths list 😉

We did see a number of black winged stilts in the area but no bandeds. A friend lives nearby and said that there were a couple of them there that night. I’d checked beforehand about stilt numbers and the bandeds had been there for a couple of weeks. I think they were just hiding very well. I saw some that may have potentially been juvenile, but double checked proved otherwise.

It’s amusing for me, but less so for Sethy. Fortunately, we scored one lifer for the day.

A welcome swallow. I initially thought it was something else but figured that it was a juvenile. The markings are too bright, although they extend further then they normally do. The chest is too clear. The fail is short, yes, but that is common for a juv. 🙂 It can be really tricky trying to hold all of this in my head!

A disheveled looking willy wagtail.

Swans

Another main reason we went there was to see the wild swans. Alas, there were only 3 there this day. We got nice views of a pair flying off as a separate pair landed.

We also saw a swan with a neck tag.

It was a bit of a disappointing twitch, but it was all I could come up with in a short timeframe. Next time I might go to Newport Lakes park. I’m running out of ideas, especially for places that also interest me. I’m sick of Balyang.

Hopefully I’ll do some more birding of my own this week, plus there is the night parrot talk this weekend. Super excited.

First Visit To Point Henry

January 27, 2015 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

It was the final week of the school holidays. (Thank gosh.) The mister had asked if we could go to Balyang. I countered, asking if he’d be interested in going to Point Henry. He immediately said “Oh, the banded stilt place.” I don’t know how his brain manages to remember everything I’ve told him.

I asked my dad if we could get dropped off on his way to town as it was closeby. As dad lately pointed out, “It may be close as the bird flies but it is a fair bit of a detour.” I felt so guilty by putting my family out during Seth and my adventures but you know what? He has loved it. Loved it so much.

We got dropped off at the carpark and started wandering around the foreshore. There were lots of shells to look at and Seth tried to teach me how to skip rocks. As he later said to mum: “Aunty Jades rocks always made a big splash!”

Then I saw it.

European goldfinch, lifer #98 for him. I had seen them before when a family of them spent a week raiding one of the trees in our backyard but hadn’t seen them since. I was pretty stoked to see them again as I think they are beautiful birds.

I looked back towards Geelong waterfront. It was incredibly beautiful, especially with all the boats from the festival of sails leaving.

There was a lot of jellyfish washed up on the beach, which was kind of awesome. It’s sad, but it also provides a learning opportunity. We didn’t see any when walking around Williamstown/Altona the day before and I really wanted him to get a close up look. Well, we got several 🙂

We had spent about 30 minutes wandering around and I wondered how we were going to spend the rest of the time. Didn’t I read there was a boardwalk? We saw this bird resting on a fence and assumed that we weren’t allowed to walk down that path. Turns out that was an entry point to the wetlands area, but oh well. We found it eventually!

Grey fantail. Want to show him a rufuos one next 😀

Boardwalk

Was very happy to show him a golden headed cisticola, lifer #99. Not sure how to pronounce it but one of my attempts sounded like “testicular.”

Seth found these little bugs. He’s so awesome at finding bugs. At one point, he opened his hand and there was about five in there.

Teeny tiny baby dotterel! Bad photo, but saw the bird running after its parent.

We didn’t have much luck at any of the bird hides, although we did hear some rustling. I wonder if there aren’t as many birds there now that Altona has shut?

Along the foreshore

We wandered around the foreshore again while waiting for my parents to pick us up. We saw this white fronted chat while I was on the phone to mum. It’s behaviour felt different to the other chats I’d seen so was hoping for a plover. No luck.

Also a pacific gull, a bird that we both love.

It was a pretty good trip despite going to an unfamiliar area. Seth really loved it. He’s noticing similarities between the various coastal areas we visit. He’s learning a lot.

It’s definitely not a case of me forcing my hobby onto him. He’s the one that asks for it. He’s developing a fondness of hiking. I’ve definitely influenced him in the sense that he’s been exposed to the natural world, due to my keen interest. But he has his own unique interests in the natural world.

He’s a good little teammate too, helping me find stuff and forcing me to slow down. I’m so grateful that dad took the time to give us lifts to places. I’ve worked super hard not to inconvenience them. I know that our adventuring has helped them to allowed them to get more down with the move without a 6 year old running around.

He’s tiring me out though. 🙂 Lot’s of talking about things afterwards, looking at apps + guides and looking at the photos.

Thinking that I may try for either a banded stilt or a hoodie for bird #100 for him. He’s loving his life list – and he’s fast catching up to mine!