Long term readers will know that this blog is a strange eclectic mix. I do the research largely to satisfy my own curiosity, the photography because I just can’t help it. Travel, variety, novelty all help to push up the output. When I’m not on the move the output falls off. The blog is not monetised in any way, I just enjoy doing it. That anyone reads it is a bonus … and, amazingly, it does get read. There were 2,591 page views in 2023. And not all of you are my aunts and uncles – the USA and China figure prominently in the readership.
So to all of my readers I say “Thank you” and I wish you all a safe and successful New Year.
I was lucky enough to come across this Great Egret in all its breeding finery the other day. I don’t know whether this is the bride or the groom but the dress is absolutely splendid.
Regular plumage is devoid of the lacework, the bill is yellow and the bare parts of the face are also mostly yellow. You can see this in a photo that I took in WA a few months ago. The remaining photos were taken at Braeside Park, Melbourne, Victoria. The sufficiently obsessed can confirm the ID by looking at the angle of the mouth, it is behind a line dropped from the back of the eye.
non-breeding plumage
Great Egrets nest in trees over water often in association with other egrets, Ibis or cormorants. They lay two to six eggs.
A number of rare birds have shown up in Broome since I went wandering. “How come they only show up when I’m not there?”, I asked. A good friend replied that “They’re there all the time but we only tell you about them when you’re not around.”
One of the current blow-ins is a Black-tailed Gull more at home in coastal China and Japan. It wanders south in the northern winter but rarely as far as Australia. Some parts of the globe are richly endowed with gulls. They are often challenging to identify and some take three years to reach full adult plumage. Their appearance can vary between seasons. In gull rich parts of the world there are keen birders that specialise in gulls. You couldn’t really make a hobby out of them in Oz. We only have three regular species and identifying them is reasonably straight forward. Kelp and Pacific Gulls are large, have black backs and take three years to reach maturity and can be aged reasonably accurately by their plumage as they make that journey. Silver Gulls are smaller, have light grey backs and reach adulthood in one year.
Silver Gulls …
Pacific Gulls …
the red tip to the massive bill extends to the upper mandible, there is a black bar in the tail. The adult legs are a richer yellow colour than Kelp Gulls.
Kelp Gulls …
The bill is less impressive than the Pacific Gull and the red spot is confined to the lower mandible. There is no black in the adult tail. The legs are a washed out yellow.
The bill is the best starting point when deciding which large juvenile gull you’re looking at.
A few months ago this little guy hatched in the Siberian tundra. He or she started feeding themself almost immediately, grew fairly quickly and soon outfitted themself in their first suit of feathers. The parents provided some measure of protection at first but then abandoned it. Our little hero then flew 12,000 km to Australia’s south coast. It weighs about 30g. (Barely more than an ounce for American readers).
Red-necked Stint (juvenile)
When overwhelmed by the need to procreate it will fly all the way back again. What a crazy strategy but it’s one that millions of migratory shorebirds will pursue. Thirty-seven species regularly spend the northern winter in the Australian summer sun.
The route these birds follow is the East Asian Australian Flyway or EAAF for short. There are other flyways in the Americas and Europe to Africa. The birds that do this perform amazing feats of endurance. Read about the Bar-tailed Godwit that holds the record non-stop 13,500 km flight Alaska to Tasmania <HERE>. That tiny Red-necked Stint will overwinter in Oz this year but after that it will do the 24,00 km round trip every year for the rest of its life. And its life span may well be as much as 18 years.
How do we know this? The answer to that is that interested people have caught them and put bands on their legs and caught them again in subsequent years, sometimes numerous times. Scientific bird banding started in Denmark in 1899 when bands were placed on 162 young Starlings. The first recovery of a banded bird in Australia predates that and has nothing to do with science. In 1887 an albatross was found near Triggs Island, Western Australia, with a tin collar around its neck carrying the message “13 naufrages sont refugies sur les iles Crozet 4 Aout 1887′. (13 shipwrecked sailors have taken refuge on the Crozet Islands, August 4 1887). Sadly they perished about a month before the help summoned by their ingenuity reached them.
One drawback of numbered metal bands is that you need to catch the bird to read it. In recent years engraved flags enable birds to be identified in the field. That’s handy for life span studies. Not so handy over the horizon on their long journeys but advances there mean that our 30g stint can now be followed by means of 0.3g geolocator.
I’ve spent the last couple of weeks in Port Fairy on Australia’s south coast and I’ve come across a number of flagged birds. I photograph these when I can and report them, a minor contribution by way of citizen science.
Bird banding is heavily regulated. In Oz it’s by the Federal Government through the Australian Bird and Bat Banding Scheme and it’s to them that you report your observations – online <HERE>. Similar bodies exist in other countries and these too can be found online. A photograph is nice but isn’t essential just a sight record will do. If you come across a dead bird with a band on make a note of the numbers on it and submit that. Use the same form.
The ABBBS will eventually get back to you with a report. The scientist that placed the band will also get details of your interaction. In the case of the Sanderling, the only migratory wader in the gallery above – the other two breed locally, I now know that it was banded at Killarny, Victoria 11 months ago. It was 2+ at the time meaning it was in its second year of life or older (in other words an adult). I found it at Yambuck 26 km away. It may have flown a lot further than that given that it is an adult and there has been a breeding season between banding and sighting. Sanderling breed in the arctic as far north as they can get before finding themselves in the sea.
Many birds can be aged accurately from their plumage in their first year of life, some even into their second or even third year. If a flag is placed on a bird of known age its age at subsequent sightings can be determined. The Pied Oystercatcher was judged to be in its third year when it was banded 12.5 years ago which makes it 15 years old now. It was banded by the Victorian Wader Studies Group 286 km east of where I found it. Long may it prosper.
I haven’t received the report for the Red-capped Plover yet.
It’s impossible to mount an argument for conservation without data. A sighting you make on an ordinary day out is a valuable contribution but only if you submit it.
Not far from Portland, near the western end of Victoria’s coast, you can find a nesting colony of Australasian Gannets on the mainland. All the others are on offshore islands. This one began in 1996 and is the extension of a large colony on the nearby Lawrence Rocks. Seabirds tend to return to their birthplace to mate and there was simply no more room at the inn.
In its first year the colony failed to get a single chick into the adult population. Foxes, feral cats and human disturbance seemed to be the problem so the colony was fenced off. I’ve heard it said that it’s now grown to about 3000 birds and is fairly successful. I doubt the true figure is that high but here’s what it looks like from the carpark. By my count that’s 257 birds but feel free to count for yourself.
An adult drops Into that crowded space with a beak full of seaweed. Building material for the new nest.
I suspect the cement is simply guano. All going well a big fluffy chick will come into being.
The parents will range up to 50km from the nest to bring back food for the youngster. They are spectacular plunge divers. It’s great entertainment when a squadron of gannets gets onto a school of fish.
Many years ago I made myself a kayak. Dangerous things kayaks. Combine them with swiftly flowing water and a fallen tree and it’s very easy to drown yourself. I came close.
That experience fits in the scope of Murphy’s Law but there is another inescapable law regarding canoes. If you want a fast canoe it will be long. It will not be manouverable. If you want a manouverable canoe it will be short. It will not be fast. You must choose your canoe to suit your intended purpose. The law of canoes has general application.
To make a photograph you need a lightproof box with a hole in the front and a surface at the back that reacts to light. You point the box at the subject, open the hole for a while, store the reaction and transform it into an image. Simple.
There are, however, some technical challenges. Too much light and your image will be white, too little and it will be dark. Getting the correct exposure depends on three things. Each of those things has to obey the law of canoes. A is for Aperture, the size of the hole. S is for Shutter Speed, the length of time that the hole is open and ISO is for the Sensitivity of the reactive surface to light. Balancing these three things will lead to a satisfactory image. Under most circumstances the modern camera can do that for you. It will trip up when the subject is dark and against a bright background, or white against a dark background or at night when light is at a premium. And on that brief and very expensive trip to Antarctica.
The bigger the aperture the more light gets in. Excellent. What’s the trade off? Depth of field. F/2 is a large aperture giving shallow depth of field, half your landscape will be fuzzy. F/16 is a tiny aperture your landscape will be in focus from somewhere near the front all the way to the back.
The longer the shutter is open the more light gets in. The trade off? For a crisp image the camera and the subject must stay still.
ISO represents the sensitivity of the sensor. The higher the number the greater the reaction to the light. The higher the number the greater the noise in the resultant image.
You’d like a sharp image, in focus from front to back and with no noise in the shadows? Sir, can I interest you in this very fast and extremely manouverable canoe?
If you’re taking control of the image you will have to decide what to sacrifice. To photograph birds I choose a high shutter speed. This guards against movement of the lens or the bird. To get in the light I have to open up the aperture. This sacrifices the depth of field. On a telephoto lens you soon bump into the limit regarding aperture so ISO will also have to increase …
ISO 2000 1/1600s f/8 600mm
The sacrifice here is depth of field but it’s no sacrifice at all. The out of focus background helps the Dusky Moorhen to stand out. The eye and bill are sharp. A slow shutter speed would likely have resulted in a soft unusable image.
For landscapes I usually keep the ISO low, the aperture small and put the camera on a tripod. The shutter may be open for several seconds. Sharp focus from front to back and low noise are the result. On the other hand the wind in the trees may make the foliage blurry and the sheep and cows will not look too good. Long exposures are the source of dreamy seascapes and creamy waterfalls. As long as the camera and a good proportion of the picture stays still movement in the scene can be put to creative use.
ISO 100 30s f/11 70mm
The 30 second exposure flattens the sea and on a still day you can get away with the foliage. A tripod is essential.
The point of all this is about getting a handle on the compromises made for this next image …
ISO 640 2s f/8 24mm
Boats are a nightmare for long exposure photography. They move. Usually just enough to ruin the image without moving enough to get an “artistic” effect. So a short shutter speed is highly desirable. We have a light source, the dockside lights. The sun flare effect from the lights only happens if the aperture is small f/16 is nice, f/11 works. I was lucky to get it at f/8. The tide wasn’t running hard, boat movement spoilt a couple of attempts but this one is sharp despite a 2 second exposure. ISO 640 doesn’t cause too much noise on the modern sensor especially if you resist the temptation to raise the shadows. I underexposed by a full stop to avoid blowing the highlights.
The subject is a beautiful wooden fishing boat called Putty’s Pride. It’s moored at Port Fairy. Keeping it in good nick must be a labour of love. Its owner has every reason to be proud.
John Griffiths built a house on the island in 1837 as a base for his whaling activities. Port Fairy is in the background with its trademark Norfolk Island Pines. It’s connected to the island by a causeway. On the right of the picture you can see the breakwaters that have improved access to the port, a byproduct of the improvements has been the silting up of shallow waters between three islands, Griffiths, Rabbit and Goat to create the enlarged Griffiths Island we have today.
The lighthouse was built in 1859. The lighthouse keepers cottage has been removed since the light was automated. However the hardier plants in the garden hold on defiantly.
The island is home to a nesting colony of Short-tailed Shearwaters. They return to breed here every spring. They clean up their burrows, usually renew their relationship with their mate of last year and work diligently to raise a single chick. In the autumn they turn their backs on the young shearwater and head for the northern hemisphere to avoid the winter. After a few weeks the chick realises that if it wants to eat it will have to fend for itself and follows.
Along the breakwaters you can often find Ruddy Turnstones and Common Sandpipers that have the same strategy but in reverse, breed in the northern hemisphere and head south for the sunshine (quite why they choose Port Fairy is a mystery).
A morning walk will often bring you close to the Swamp Wallabies that live on the island. They are fairly well habituated and will pose for pictures. This one was munching on whatever it is that passes for leaves on Norfolk Island Pines.
Victoria was our home for most of our lives. Our return is mostly about catching up with family and friends. They are well worth traveling 5000km for but are not riveting material for a blog.
After two weeks here I am beginning to cope with the cold. It’s 2:30pm and just 17° (it could be worse, it could be Fahrenheit). We’re in Port Fairy. It’s raining. Of course it’s raining, we’re in Port Fairy. It is one of my most favorite places in all the world despite its weather.
I was out before the rain. An overcast sky is actually very good for the bird photographer. Colours are vivid, there are no harsh shadows. The light is kind. And processing the files is something you can do to pass the time while it’s raining. Did I mention the rain?
Australian MagpieLittle Pied CormorantLittle Pied CormorantWhite-faced Heron
Do click on the gallery.
Friends back in Broome are finding the Build Up a bit oppressive. Between the Dry and the Wet seasons temperatures and humidity soar and begin to wear on you. The nights are uncomfortable. Tempers fray. The Build Up is a season of black eyes and broken jaws . Rain and the relief it brings will be more than welcome when it comes. Meanwhile they have cloudy skies and lightning shows.
The heatwave was a one day affair. A cold change came through overnight bringing a light shower with it. The journey took us to Wirreburra with its beautiful silo art, one of my favorites.
Then on through the South Australian Riverland, irrigated farmland under fruit trees and grapevines to the northwest corner of Victoria and our campsite near Mildura. A couple of pleasant nights on the banks of the Murray then to the Goldfields to catch up with some friends.
The Victorian Goldfields were as always at this time of the year, the winter crops were coming in, the grass had turned to gold and the sheep were in fine condition. And the night sky was clear.
bobmcgee 