wood duck

Latest Balyang Shenanigans

November 4, 2015 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

It feels like all I’ve been writing about lately is nesting behaviour, willy wagtails and what chicks have hatched. I’ve been a bit obsessed. There have been other interesting happenings at Balyang.

Below is a royal spoonbill. I struggled to get a really nice, focused shot it of, despite trying for over an hour. They visit now and again but only spend a short time there at any given time.

House sparrow having a bath. It’s so easy to overlook sparrows, especially as they are an introduced bird. It can lead to interesting photos though if you just watch for a while. Bathing is a behaviour I’ve been trying to capture lately.

A ginormous spider we found, and its presumably deceased mate.

I’ve seen two separate large group of wood ducks that look like they are almost grown up.

Glenn got some lovely photos of these two cockatoos haven’t a snuggle. I don’t know if this is courting behaviour but I suspect it’s just mateship.

Bluetongue! I find it in the car park near Princes bridge. It is the second time I’ve seen them in the area this season, which is pretty awesome.

I also got two more photos for my ‘birds doing a poop’ collection. Here is yet another of a great cormorant. For a short while, I thought I had missed the shot completely. Until I zoomed in and saw this:

Seriously, who could time a shot that great? (Perhaps I need to look at shutter speeds too while I’m at it. Below is a photo of a darter doing one. I had such great luck with both shots that it has led me to become cocky. I’ve spent hours since then trying to replicate my success but have failed. 😉 Oh well, that makes it an ever more awesome challenge. Goal is now to get 20 bird poop shots by the end of the year.

It’s also worth reading Ian Smissens recent blog post about Balyang. Those darters are growing quickly!

Lake Lorne in May: Cold Yet Awesome

May 14, 2015 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

On Wednesday, I got a text message from Carolyn asking if I wanted to go birding. I was having a bit of an anxious day but ended up saying ‘Yes’ – provided we didn’t visit somewhere along the Barwon River.

Now, I love the Barwon. It’s a beautiful area. It’s also an area I’ve explored WAY too much with a very adventurour 6 year old. On childless birding trips, I want to go further afield. Fortunately, Carolyn was thinking along the same lines, to the point where she suggested the same two places I have been wanting to go to for a while. The latter idea was Lake Lorne…. which I’ll be writing about first because internet downloads are SO slow!

It had been raining on and off all day. It was raining on the way there but cleared up as soon as we got there. As soon as I got out of the car I immediately regretted not bringing the zoom lens.

Look at that spoonbill! Beauties like that deserve the close up treatment. We were lucky enough to find two spoonbills on the day

There was a large number of ducks on the lake, more then I had seen on the previous visits. The lake is quite large so it is easy to overlook just how many different species there are. In this photo, wood ducks and freckleds were scared off by our presence.

We were so fortunate. There was at least 3 whistling kites circling overhead. One ended up landing on a dead branch in on a tree in one of the lakes islands. I loved hearing their call. We also saw a black kite flying off from a tree. It was so quick, I didn’t have the time to get my camera.

The yellow spoonbill was quite close, I was so annoyed that I didn’t bring the zoom lense. I was also happy to get closer to a yellow one. They don’t seem to be as common, nor as friendly, as the royal.

More photos of the kite. Could have spent a lot longer photographing them if I had the time.

Eastern Rosella. I’ve noticed that these are the most common in this area.

Large number of straw necked ibises flying in to roost at this time. It was just before 5pm.

It was also awesome to get this photo series of an egret catching a fish! It was also fascinating how these two birds banded together and worked together to get food. I wonder if this is a common pairing?

Some of the ducks. Carolyn saw blue billed, shovelers and plenty of pink eareds. It was so amazing to see all my favourites.

The ibises roosting.

It was an unexpectedly fantastic twitch. It was so different compared to previous visits. I think I need to visit here a lot more frequently to properly understand it.

It can be very hit and miss in terms of what you get from it. Perhaps it is more interesting in winter? I guess I’ll be learning a lot more about it in the coming months 🙂

Dipping on the Tawny Frogmouth

November 28, 2014 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

This trip took place on the 12th of November

Tawny frogmouths are something that have eluded me for some time. They taunt me. In late Nov/early October, a nest was discovered in the sanctuary near where I live. Some excited birders told Glenn about it on one of his early morning photography missions. I, of course, was doing the wise thing by sleeping in.

I was unable to get down there myself to check it out due to a nasty cold. I had gone to my great grandmothers funeral the week before and was completely wiped out. Driving to Mansfield and back from Geelong is exhausting, even if you’re stuck in the back seat getting asked to ‘stop coughing already.’

On Wednesday I was feeling better. Not 100%, but well enough to walk down there at least. I didn’t know how I was going to get home as I still felt woozy. But there was a Tawny frogmouth!

I wasn’t even at the bridge when I saw a reed warbler. Reed warblers vex me. I always hear them calling along the Barwon river but rarely see them. On this day, I kind of didn’t care. I was feeling rotten. I snapped these two obligatory photos because I knew that Glenn would want me to.

Also saw a different family of wood ducks. These guys aren’t as timid as the family that hang out nearby on the Barwon river. The two chicks in that family are almost adults! I’ve observed these parents with 3 chicks on multiple occasions.

I laid down on my bag for about 10 minutes with the telephoto lens, looking up into the tree. Don’t ask, but Glenn and I have this obsession of trying to get photos of birds doing a poop. I got one once by accident and it’s become a competition. It’s like the birds wait until we aren’t looking. I’ve noticed a lot of great cormorants on this particular tree, although none of them defecated on this visit.

I noticed a shadow pass over and was able to get two photos of a pelican coming into land. The rest of the photos turned out blurry. I think they are a magnificent bird.

Managed to get a clear shot of a red rump in a tree! There was also a masked lapwing that was considerably more tolerant of humans then most of it’s kind. It even took a little bath.

I completely dipped on the frogmouths. I spent 10 minutes looking in the trees and started to feel nauseous. I knew I’d return for a proper look when I felt better. They were very well camouflaged! The walk home made me sick and I ended up sleeping for the rest of the day. Was a nice trip though.

Sidenote:

I took my nephew to see the frogmouths yesterday. He was really excited to bring his lifelist up to 72 birds. I showed him the other frogmouths you can get. He likes it when I say ‘Papuan frogmouth’ because it sounds like it has the word poo in it. I told him that Papuan frogmouths do ‘pa-poos’. It’s my job to be immature 🙂

Also, a teacher at Seths school mentioned that there was an owl in a tree there last year. He better tell me if he sees any cool birds!

Tawny Frogmouth near Balyang

November 28, 2014 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

In my last post, I wrote about how tawny frogmouths are evil and intentionally hide from me. I know that they don’t but this was the second time that they have eluded me.

Glenn was going to go down by himself to get photos but I offered to go with him. He doesn’t have my prowess for finding birds. We had explored the region for about 5 minutes before he left for Balyang. He asked me to get him if I found the birds.

Guess what I saw about 2 minutes later? I could still see Glenn and tried shouting to him. He didn’t hear. So, I tried to get a photo.

Alas, this isn’t my photo. After about 10 minutes of stuffing around, I realized that I’d lost my memory card. One of the ones that Glenn had lent me was faulty. The other was full. I was livid. It didn’t matter though, as Glenn had the better lens.

After exploring Balyang and the Barwon river, he eventually! went to the other side of the river in search of the bird.

Apparently it isn’t nice to mock your partner for being a crappy birder. Especially if he is colour blind and can’t distinguish between certain colours! That shut me up rather quickly.

We were just off the path and there was a lot of stuff in the way blocking the view. I was struggling really hard to get a focus. I ended up getting a clear view and immediately switched it to manual focus so it wouldn’t change.

That ended up working really well for us. I didn’t tell Glenn, so we accidentally left it on manual for the rest of the time we were there. It worked out well though.

He ended up going down the bank somewhat, sliding down a hill, to get better shots. I disagree with stuff like this because I get concerned it will bother the birds. Glenn said the frogmouth didn’t care. It looked down briefly and then continued pretending to be invisible. He did get some lovely close ups of darters on their nests. That made me uncomfortable as I prefer to leave nesting birds along.

I have to admit, he got some brilliant shots at that angle.

Finally, the obligatory shot of the wood duck family.

Days like Tuesday make me fall in love with birding all over again. Glenn was amazed at how well camouflaged the bird is – despite having seen it twice in captivity before! I love owls.

Balyang: 22nd September

September 25, 2014 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

We decided to go to Balyang. It was a beautiful day and we needed to resume heron watch. We were walking towards Princes bridge when I saw this bird in the reeds. “Give me the camera!” I said, and got a couple of shots so I could ID it later. I gave the camera back to Glenn. The bird stuck around for a bit and Glenn took this awesome shot.

I checked with a Facebook community and it turns out my original assumption of a reed warbler was right! You have no idea how proud I am. It was an educated guess based on my limited knowledge. 🙂 I’m learning.

Got a lovely shot of several ibis groups joining. The photo doesn’t reflect how awesome the sight was.

Only saw three wood ducks this time, near the dead tree

Seagulls Bathing

Glenn got shots of all of the gulls in the frame, and I then cropped them according to whether or not a bird was doing something interest.

We got some great close ups! I don’t know whether they are cropped too closely or need further post processing. This girl is exhausted

The boardwalk

We went to the boardwalk and I told him to try and get some clear shots, or get a photo of something different. Photography is too easy at Balyang. It doesn’t reflect typical conditions during wildlife photography. I’m really trying to help him improve without chucking a lot of technical information at him.

I ended up taking the following thornbill photos. I really wanted to get the shots and Glenn was struggling

I’m assuming the following bird is a grey fantail. I’ll double check shortly. I was so impressed though. I heard this beautiful bird call but couldn’t see where it was coming from. Glenn said “shhh” and held up his hand for me to stop moving. He then pointed ahead to where the bird was singing. He got such a clear view of it and I was impressed with his ability to find the bird. That’s usually my forte. Glenn is definitely devloping a birders instinct. Yesterday he said he is much more aware of bird calls in general! I may have a birding companion after all 🙂