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I will be redirecting you to my modified address soon. I will link it to my website as my friend Stephen Davey suggested I use Wordpress that is independent from Google etc... so I took the advice and set it up. As soon as I can update the blog link as the final version I will let you know. F

Probably my all time favorite species of heron is the White-necked Heron (Ardea pacifica) or previously known as Pacific Heron. I am actually annoyed as to why they had to change the common name. Pacific had so much more romance and pleasantness to it; but White-necked? It now sounds like some boring bird.

One of my first encounters with these mighty fine Ardeids was near Nepean Weir at Penrith where I saw one standing in the spot I call the rapids – where the convergence of the river’s banks causes the water to flow over a gap around 20 meters wide and there are a lot of nice, round pebbles. It creates a rapid flow I would expect in a mountain stream, hence my name for the area. As I approached from the top of the hill along the footpath the heron flew when I got not even 100 meters away. It was a fleeting encounter indeed. I remember how impressive the bird looked even from the distance. Next time I saw them was at Pitt Town Lagoon in November 2007 and they liked the areas further from any known walking track. I, once again, observed from a safe distance. Safe for them that is. Then one day I got really close. You wonder how? It’s easy. I was not out to photograph them at all. In fact, I was dressed in full camouflage gear from head to toe with even the Aussie army issue broad-brimmed hat covering my head to protect me from above. I was crawling through the snake-infested swamp in order to get close to some Black-winged Stilts (Himantopus himantopus). The approach worked and I got close. I even managed to see a few sleeping Japanese Snipes (Gallinago hardwickii) that are now called Latham’s Snipe from about 5 meters away as they lay so inconspicuously among the tussocks. I would never have seen them if I was not so close and so careful. Then I heard some harsh croaking calls from above. I carefully looked and saw that a pair of White-necked Herons were approaching but were also squabbling at the same time. They were pecking each other in flight and circled low over me. Needless to say it would have been suicidal to stand up as the birds would surely have deserted the area immediately. So I lay quietly and watched carefully. Then one flew in from the SW, very low over the swamp and I managed to get one image on approach before it landed about 12 meters away.

Image: 30D, 300mm fl4L IS USM + 1.4x, ISO400, f/8, 1/2000th, -1/3 exposure compensation, no flash, hand held, 85% of full frame.

The approach shot is a classic for me, even though an out of focus dry and very dead grass stem is obscuring the head. Actually, I don’t find that distracting at all and in my opinion it takes nothing away from the image. I was surrounded by tall, dry and dead grasses so that was what I’d get. As soon as it landed I carefully composed and fired off a couple of frames before the heron realized it was a mortal enemy laying in the swamp nearby and made a hasty departure. I was rapt to say the least. My favorite bird so close to me and so unexpectedly.

That is the best thing about nature photography. You never know what will cross your path when you are out in the field.

Image: 30D, 300mm fl4L IS USM + 1.4x, ISO400, f/8, 1/1000th, -1/3 exposure compensation, no flash, hand held, 85% of full frame.

It was the odd sighting since that day; here and there, in flight over a swamp, in the distance in a pond and so on. In the spring of 2009 (which is September-November in Australia) I had a young specimen in a small triangular-shaped road side grass patch in Cranebrook for nearly two weeks. I had moderate success photographing this one using my car as a hide and could get close to it and observe it feast on earthworms.

Then late 2009 on my way home from work one day I took a detour into the lowlands of Richmond, about 50km NW of Sydney. A small pond sits almost beside the fence along the roadway and it is here where I became reacquainted with this majestic heron that afternoon. I had my friend Alex Zografos with me earlier and we visited a Striated Pardalote (Pardalotus striatus) colony in Schofields before coming out here to che

ck for raptors. Alex decided to call it a day and head home and I chose to have another look in the area that we missed on the previous drive through the lowlands.

Image: 30D, 300mm fl4L IS USM + 1.4x, ISO800, f/8, 1/250th, 0 exposure compensation, 430EX at -2/3 with Better Beamer, hand held, full frame.

The light was wrong from a photography perspective. Well only to a degree. I prefer light to come from behind me straight onto the bird. Though many other times I also enjoy capturing

an imageof back or side-lit birds that give a different sense of depth to the image and a very unique and appealing look.

Image: 30D, 300mm fl4L IS USM + 1.4x, ISO400, f/5.6, 1/1250th, +2/3 exposure compensation, hand held, full height crop from horizontal frame.

Therefore, I worked the best I could from the edge of the pond without spooking the heron. I also woke to the fact that if I were to come again at dawn, the light would be from my ideal angle. The next time I came, I’ve won! It was still relatively early, but the harsh Aussie sun was already burning hot and a beautiful young White-necked Heron was foraging at the far end of the pond totally ignoring me of my slow and deliberate approach.

Image: 30D, 300mm fl4L IS USM + 1.4x, ISO400, f/6.3, 1/640th, +2/3 exposure compensation, hand held, full frame.

I was totally blown away as to how unconcerned this bird was of my presence and I kept working it for about half an hour photographing it in all different poses, from up close to afar. In fact, right near the end of our little session it came so close I could only fit the head and shoulders into the frame. It made composition tough and there were some dry sticks right behind the head, which were rather annoying in a way, but I was unable to change position as I knew any significant movement would make it flee in an instant. It did about two minutes later. Not that I moved at all. My legs were cramped and I had pins and needles in both feet for a while, but it was all worth it.

I hope you enjoyed reading about my encounters with the White-necked Herons. Wish you all great light for your journey!

Image: 30D, 300mm fl4L IS USM + 1.4x, ISO500, f/7.1, 1/500th, +2/3 exposure compensation, hand held, full frame.

Spoonbill surprise...

Yesterday morning I found the resident Brown Falcon at one of my favorite spots and got some nice images of it, as well as saw my first ever Plumed Whistling Ducks. It was foggy, as it was today, and it was the case of getting as close as possible to avoid the white, washed out look.

Brown Falcon (Falco berigora). 30D, 300mm f/4L IS USM, stacked 2x and 1.4x, ISO1600, f/16, 1/320th, hand held, cropped from horizontal into full frame vertical image. Noise reduction to sky.

I was actually heading home when I noted a brownish head peering above tall grasses some 100m from me as I drove along. Having pondered what it may have been and that it looked a little odd, I quickly turned around and checked it with my binoculars. There were at least six if not more of these Plumed Whistling Ducks around the edge of that particular pond. I was so elated as it was a first for me. Being very far I had to use stacked converters on my 300mm f/4L IS USM lens and while normally the image quality is quite good when the subject is close, when they are far, the only shots it's good for is for ID.

As I drove along Andrews Road near the Penrith Baseball fields on my way to feed my horse I noticed a bird of prey on the side of the road, perched on the most unattractive sign. I thought it was a Little Falcon (Falco longipennis) at first, but when I turned around and stopped, it turned out to be a Brown Goshawk (Accipiter fasciatus). Rarely have I seen a perched Brownie let alone in the open. I was already amazed that at 30m away it sat still. I approached a bit closer and used the stacked converters again and really struggled to get any shutter speed. The dark areas are a little noisy in the RAW file, but I managed to easily clean the sky, leaving a little digital grain in the dark plumage. Still, a gorgeous raptor and I look forward to photographing the nesting pair in my friend's front yard in a couple of months' time.

Brown Goshawk (Accipiter fasciatus) on the lookout. 30D, 300mm f/4L IS USM, stacked 2x and 1.4x, ISO1600, f/16, 1/320th, hand held, 70% of full frame taken at sunrise.




This morning, I checked one of my regularly visited ponds to find a pair of Yellow-billed Spoonbills (Platalea flavipes) preening on the edge. The fog was worse than yesterday, yet the ambiance was beautiful and I actually enjoyed the scenery. I was able to approach carefully to within 15m of both birds as there were tall tussocks and other vegetation that were partly obscuring them. Lucky me. Most of the time any species of spoonbill are really hard to work with as their comfort zone is usually at least 50m. I was kneeling on the wet grass as they began to feed. One walked further away but first gave me ample opportunities to watch it move its bill rapidly from side to side as it probed for morsels. A few times it seemed to have grabbed something only to come up empty handed. After a couple of minutes the bird flew. Its partner hung around and behaved perfectly normally. At this stage I was still using my 300mm f/4L IS USM combo with a 1.4x converter, giving me a field of view of 672mm due to my camera having an APS-C sensor.











Yellow-billed Spoonbill (Platalea flavipes) feeding. 30D, 300mm f/4L IS USM, 1.4x, ISO640, f/5.6, 1/2000th, hand held, full frame image.




In any case, I kept working with the bird and once I had enough images with the 1.4x converter, I slapped the 2x on for a while. It's still a good combo in good light, but I only have manual focus. I got quite a few shots with this set-up when my adventurous side told me to stack the 1.4x onto it, giving me an effective focal length of 840mm or around 1344mm on the APS-C sensor crop body. Not an easy job to get sharp images while hand holding. I had to push ISO to 1600 to get some shutter speed, any speed for that length of lens and I was rather happy with the results. Nothing a little noise reduction in post process could not deal with. I was overexposing on average by at least one stop and reduced exposure during RAW file conversion. About ten minutes later a White-necked Heron dropped in as well. It pays to stay low and pretty slow and quiet. It's amazing how many times the birds will come close!

Yellow-billed Spoonbill (Platalea flavipes) feeding. 30D, 300mm f/4L IS USM, stacked 2x and 1.4x, ISO1600, f/16, 1/320th, hand held, full frame image.

Don't forget to click the images so you get to enjoy the larger sized view. :)

























Yellow-billed Spoonbill (Platalea flavipes) portrait. 30D, 300mm f/4L IS USM, stacked 2x and 1.4x, ISO1600, f/16, 1/500th, hand held, full frame image.



















Yellow-billed Spoonbill (Platalea flavipes) and White-necked Heron (Ardea pacifica). 30D, 300mm f/4L IS USM, 1.4x, ISO500, f/5.6, 1/1600th, hand held, full frame image, +1 stop compensation.