The 2016 Calendar

The calendar is ready at last – with a mix of new images and successful entries into international competitions. If any are sold at this late stage, all profits will be donated to the Coalition Against Duck Shooting (CADS) whose members lobby for the shooting season in Victoria to be banned and who tirelessly patrol lakes and wetlands during each three-month shooting season to rescue injured birds.

Lirralirra 2016 Calendar – front cover, back cover, January and February samples

Redbubble calendars are large (30cm x 42cm, 12″ x 16.5″, A3) and printed on high-quality paper. Redbubble was founded in Australia, has an office in the USA and post items worldwide, with excellent delivery times. Click the following link if you’d like to see the images in more detail and relate them to the text below: 2016 lirralirra Calendar

Cover/December ~ Grey Teal

Grey Teal are small native ducks, ‘game birds’, that can legally be shot during the 3 month shooting season. They breed when conditions are favourable, some years they may have more than one clutch while in other years they may not breed at all. Between 4 and 14 eggs can be laid on the ground, in hollow logs or in burrows created by other creatures. They travel great distances in times of drought, which is of concern when wetlands are artifically filled during the shooting season.

January – Barking Owl

In July I posted numerous images of this magnificent owl in ‘Seriously Spectacular Bird’. I didn’t include this image in that post, it’s my favourite of the owl, the look in its eyes is remarkable.

February – New Holland Honeyeater

New Holland Honeyeaters are fairly common across southern Australia where they dart from blossom to blossom in search of nectar. This one was feeding on japonica flowers, I like the colours in the image and the fact that the bird is feeding while facing the camera.

March – Gang-gang Cockatoo

Gang-gang Cockatoos are awesome birds with a creaky-door call and beautifully fringed feathers. They feed using their left ‘foot’ as shown in this image of a female gang-gang feeding.

April – Helmeted Honeyeater

For the past few years I’ve been part of the team providing supplementary feeding for this critically endangered species. The April image is of a young bird which had not yet been trapped for banding.

May – Pacific Gull

Pacific Gulls are impressive birds that are larger and less common than Silver Gulls. This one was thrashing the leatherjacket fish from side to side as can just been discerned by some flying droplets. The red tip to the end of its bill looks like, but isn’t, blood from its catch.

June – Grey Fantail

Grey Fantails are exquisite small bush birds that sing sweetly and zip around like hyperactive insect eaters to catch bugs in flight.

July  – Hooded Plover chick

This Hooded Plover chick is part of a critically endangered population on Victoria’s Phillip Island. When photographing these small shorebirds I do not follow them, instead I stay low to the sand and hope they’ll forage towards me – as they did this time. It was a day of blessings.

August – Australian Magpie

This young magpie sang for ages at sunset one lovely evening in the high country. The light was gorgeous, the magpie stayed in the same spot for a crazily long time and it’s warbling song was beautiful.

September – Superb Fairy-wren

Fairy-wrens are exquisite. This male had just lifted a worm from the grass, it can just be seen to the right of centre at the front of the focussed area of grass. The fairy-wren looked up before re-collecting the worm.

October – Purple Swamphen chick

A pair of swamphen chicks were at a small lake at the edge of a camp ground. They ran so fast I can still hardly believe that I was able to capture this image complete with its fluffy feathers, pin-feathers and huge foot lifted as it ran.

November – Red-necked Avocet

Red-neck Avocet are one of the world’s most beautiful and delicate shorebirds. The bird in the image is a young avocet with a slightly greyish head, it will reach about 40cm in length and 300g in weight. They use their fine, upturned bills to swish back and forth beneath the surface of the water to catch aquatic critters.

More information about CADS and the Victorian shooting season is available by clicking the Season of Shame links in the favourites section of the right-hand sidebar. Please be warned that Season of Shame 2 contains graphic images that were sickening to take but have been used to clarify sites available to shooters, which has hopefully reduced the number of birds killed and injured in the area.

Next week I’m excited to be sharing images from my visit to the Australian Wildlife Conservancy’s Scotia Wildlife Sanctuary where I saw all kinds of stunning, extinct-in-the-wild creatures and spent several days watching a Malleefowl mound.

Happy birding, Kim

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