Trying to get interesting Bird In Flight (BIF) shots is tricky down by the river. The river is fringed by trees and this causes the auto focus system on my camera to get confused, which means it locks onto the trees rather than the bird. The end result is lots of photos of out of focus birds. But this week I had the bright idea of standing on the South Street bridge. Usually the birds fly up and down the river and so they’d be coming straight at me with no confusing background. I say usually as I stood on that bridge for over an hour and there were no birds flying or otherwise. Very frustrating to say the least. So I decided to cut my losses and take a walk up the river to see if I could find anything higher up. Zip! Zilch! De nada! So where do all the birds go? Had they gone on a day trip somewhere? Do they just hide? It was quickly turning out to be a complete washout. Feeling a little crest fallen as I was making my way back to the car I came across a couple of Bambon or Rufous Whistlers in the trees at Monger’s Crossing. They’re one of my favourite birds and I can listen to them sing for ages. They were obliging enough to hang around long enough for me to take a couple of photos. This lifted the spirits somewhat.

 

Just before the Swing Bridge there are a couple of dead trees on the river bank and they are a popular perch for kingfishers, but this time they being used by some Kakara or Crested Pigeon (Ocyphaps lophotes). The first one looked a bit startled when it saw me, but the other was very chilled. They have the most amazing red eyes. The brilliant blue of the sky made for a nice background.

So it wasn’t a wasted morning after all.