Hodgepodge

I sat under the hide in my garden this afternoon, it’s a pleasure I haven’t had the chance to enjoy for a long time.

New Holland Honeyeater (Phylidonyris novaehollandiae)
1/1600, f/5.6, ISO 1600

This New Holland Honeyeater had such a quizzical expression as it briefly looked towards the clicking, camouflaged blob aka me.

Clouds were coming and going which meant that I constantly needed to change my settings. I’ve toyed with the idea of manually setting the shutter speed and the f/stop while allowing the ISO to be variable (up to a set maximum) but for some reason I can’t make myself do it. I like the discipline of being constantly aware of the changes in lighting, though missing images because of it isn’t much fun.

For about eighteen months the small birds that were always in my garden disappeared – it was horrid, I missed them so much. Since mid-December they’ve been back, it’s the strangest thing. Watching and listening from the hide today meant I enjoyed many species, including, New Holland Honeyeater, Yellow-faced Honeyeater, White-naped Honeyeater, Spotted Pardalote, Striated Pardalote, Brown Thornbill, Striated Thornbill, Red-browed Finch, Silvereye, Grey Butcherbird, Crimson Rosella, Spotted Dove, Grey-fantail, Superb Fairy-wren and Grey Shrike-thrush. The finches and White-naped Honeyeaters were both accompanied by juveniles. I didn’t manage to photograph every species, they are crazily fast, but I did get some cute shots that I will share soon.

I am honoured to be one of the photographers invited to be part of Melbourne Camera Club’s International Women’s Day Photography Exhibition. We were asked to supply up to five prints so the diversity of genres is going to be fantastic. I missed the opening last night but have heard that it was excellent and I’m keen to view the images.

My images were printed on Museo Portfolio Rag, 100% cotton archival paper, it’s beautiful. If you are able to attend, and see me there, please say hi.

And, finally, although another duck shooting season has been called, the Pegasus Report has revealed damning information about the realities of the season and the inability of the Game Management Authority to function appropriately. Click to read the ABC article Victorian Agriculture Minister ‘very concerned’ after leaked report claims hunters are regularly breaking law

Now that the horrific behaviour of duck shooters has been acknowledged by government and the GMA, I am hopeful that change is on its way. The Coalition Against Duck Shooting and Animals Australia are pressing for this year’s season to be stopped in recognition of the inability for it to be properly regulated: the report stated, “The events at Koorangie Marshes, and earlier similar events at Box Flat in 2013, represent significant failures of a state regulatory agency to enforce the laws for which it is responsible and have seriously undermined the GMA’s credibility as an independent and credible regulator”.

My youngest daughter was at Koorangie Marshes and I published her harrowing account of the event in the post Hope amongst Horror

This Animals Australia link takes you to a page where you can quickly and easily send a form letter to your local MP, wouldn’t it be great if this year’s season was closed! Here’s the link: AA Letter 

Happy birding, and hopefully happy birds too

Kim

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