I was outside with my dogs, at 11pm, when I suddenly remembered it’s Friday.
Canon 5DSR, Canon 200-400mm L IS USM EXT
1/2500, f/6.3, ISO 1600, focal length 560mm
I raced back into the warm and spun the mouse wheel through my processed images. It stopped on this shot of a Little Pied Cormorant, which made me laugh aloud as I’m sure it’s expression is much the same as mine was when I realised I only had an hour to work on this week’s post.
It’s been a busy week as we gradually emerge from the very successful lockdown that has seen Victoria with zero cases for the past 13 days. I’ve been working to clear the fallen branches that came down in our recent winds. Today Ben Shannon, the Resilience Trees aborist, trimmed a large Swamp Gum (Eucalyptus ovata) that fell recently. I didn’t want its leaves to become tinder dry just in time for summer. I highly recommend Ben if you have trees you care about, I’ll add his contact details to my links page.
Little Pied Cormorants are black above and white below, with a relatively short yellow bill. Immature birds, like this one, are similar to adults except that adult birds have white above their eyes.
They live across Australia at all kinds of wetlands where they dive for crustaceans, including yabbies, and some fish. They are similar to the Pied Cormorant but they are smaller, with shorter bills and without the Pied Cormorant’s orange face patch and black thighs.
I’ll finish this week’s post with a super cute lockdown story. I’ve been able to catch up with family, which has been overwhelmingly wonderful, including the twins who turned one in August. It’s been so hard only seeing them on Skype and facetime calls. Imagine how beautiful it was when they visited. One of them saw me and began running towards me across the grass, almost as quickly as I ran to her. As I bent down to her she stopped about half a metre in front of me, smiling and waving, as though I was still on a screen. I held my arms out and was soon hugging her and her sister. Absolute bliss.
Happy birding, Kim
~ Facebook page Kim Wormald – lirralirra
~ Facebook group Ethical Bird Photography
PS I will answer last week’s comments as soon as I can
Hi Kim,
You can’t beat a hug from your Grandchildren, can you?! So glad that the situation has eased down your way. So hard for little kids when they can’t hug and they don’t understand why.
Love this photo of the Little Pied Cormorant. You really know how to capture those special moments that make me smile. Thankyou.
Thank you Marg, you are absolutely right re the hugs. It’s so good to have had zeros for so long, life is gradually getting back to some kind of normal – I hope it stays that way for all of us.
That’s been how my face has looked almost all of 2020!
How funny, it’s definitely a what-the-heck kind of expression 🙂
Mine was also spam and now a duplicate comment
Fantastic to hug family again, Kim. The little cormorant makes me laugh, he looks like a messed up muppet that was shoved in a cupboard – he’s all over the place
I’m not sure what has happened with the recent update Syndy, sorry about the muddle, hopefully it’ll sort out soon (or I’ll keep rescuing from the spam folder). ‘Messed up muppet’ hahaha!
Wonderful post as usual Kim, and so glad you were able to see and hug the twinnies 🙂
Thanks so much Bill, it was very, very special
Hi Kim your pictures always bring a smile and so much joy but nothing beats a real hug from a child. They are indeed absolute bliss and given with so much love. Just like your photos they capture a very special moment in time. Enjoy your freedoms.
Thank you so much for your kind comments Barbara. I have to agree about hugs from a child, and I love a child sleeping in my arms too, blissful.
Hi Kim. Thank you for the very sunny story. We’re in a modified lockdown again as COVID cases continue to soar to new heights in our region. It seems like all the hard work of last winter has gone out the window. Lucky for us we get to see your wonderful photographs and read about a fun family reunion. The Cormorant photo is the perfect photo for brightening up my week. Many thanks.
HB
Hi Harry, so sorry to hear that cases are going up in your region. Hopefully an effective vaccine will soon be available and will help everyone’s lives get back to some kind of normal. I’m glad you liked the cormorant, such a comical expression. Take care out there, Kim
HOORAY for that long awaited blissful hug. And all the ones which followed.
I am pretty certain that I rock the Little Pied Cormorant’s expression more often than I care to admit. Fortunately the paparazzi are absent here.
Wonderful photo Kim – and I suspect many of us have lost awareness of days during Covid. I am glad that you caught it in the nick of time.
I am hoping that this comment goes through. Others have failed.
Really blissful. And family here for dinner yesterday which was amazing, so strange and yet so normal. I don’t know why comments are ending up in spam, maybe the same bug that caused images to look strange on mobiles until the lovely Joy solved the problem for me.
Hi Kim.
WordPress told me that my first comment was spam. Please let me know if it didn’t arrive.
Thanks for letting me know EC. I’ve left this comment here as it might be of interest to others as I rescued a few non-spam comments from the spam folder. There has just been an update to the site so I’ve asked the lovely Joy if she can solve the issue.