Delicious and delightful

Delicious japonica blossoms, delightful honeyeaters and clear backgrounds combined to give me three images in 1/100th of a second. According to the image data the first shot was taken at 16:01:32 while the second two registered 16:01:33.

 

 Honeyeater FeedingNew Holland Honeyeater (Phylidonyris novaehollandiae)
Canon 5DIII, 100-400mm L IS USM, 1/800, f/5.6, ISO 400, focal length 400mm

 

I was so pleased to get a clear shot of a honeyeater feeding while it faced the camera. I could just imagine its long feathery tongue sweeping up the high-energy nectar. The look of concentration in its eye is quite remarkable. Birds are vulnerable to attack from any direction and are constantly on the lookout for cats, raptors and any other potential threat. It’s often the shrieking sound of alarm calls that lets me know there’s a predator around, often it’s our local Brown Goshawk, or the Collared Sparrowhawk.

 

New Holland HoneyeaterNew Holland Honeyeater
Canon 5DIII, 100-400mm L IS USM, 1/800, f/5.6, ISO 400, focal length 400mm

 

After a quick dip into the honey pot lasting less than one second, the New Holland Honeyeater was ready to find another blossom.

 

Seeking HoneyNew Holland Honeyeater
Canon 5DIII, 100-400mm L IS USM, 1/800, f/5.6, ISO 400, focal length 400mm

 

And there it was on the branch above. Honeyeaters are active feeders, darting from one blossom to another, checking them for nectar and briefly feeding from some of them. The New Holland Honeyeater’s hind toes look disproportionately large as it grasps the japonica stem and its yellow feathers can just be seen hiding amongst the blossoms.

I’ve spent time this week using the new Canon 7DII. It is an impressive camera to shoot with and I’m looking forward to being able to work on the RAW files (when the software becomes available) to confirm that the image quality is as good as it seems. I’ll keep you posted.

Spell-check decided that ‘honeyeater’ should really be ‘moneymaker’ – now that could help with buying new equipment!

Happy birding, Kim

 

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