It’s a well established wisdom that to photograph most wildlife you have to be in the field at sunrise or just before. I have to say that this is quite pleasurable in summer as it is the coolest part of the day. In fact the last few days it has almost felt cold at just 20ºC. I’ve been heading out looking for black shouldered kites and rainbow bee-eaters. I’ve done my homework found the trees that the kites nest in and the burrows that the rainbow bee-eaters are currently using. I’ve also found out which trees that they like to perch in. Sounds like  it is done and dusted, but photographing wildlife is seldom straight forward.

The black shouldered kites are incredibly skittish. The closest I’ve ever got to one was while walking the dog. Needless to say I didn’t have a camera with me. So far my efforts have come to naught – the closest I’ve managed to get with a camera is 30 metres. It’s a work in progress.

The Rainbow bee-eaters are in full swing with raising chicks so both parents will be out hunting and returning to the nest with food roughly every 15 minutes. So all that was necessary was to get into position as the sun’s rising and wait for them to appear. Except they didn’t. Seems like I picked the morning when they decided to have a lie in. After an hour an a half I decided to move to “Plan B” which was to cross the river and go to another site I’ve been watching. Here the birds were early risers and were already full swing into the routine for the day. Photographing them in York is more difficult than at Lake Gwelup where they have been habituated to a human presence and perching posts have been put at lower heights – approximately 1-1.5 metres above the ground. The open terrain means that capturing them flying and hunting is easier. Here in York they favour larger trees, but occasionally will perch lower.  This particular morning I came across a male bird perched in the top of a dead tree. He wasn’t exhibiting the usual behaviour – in fact he looked downright uncomfortable. After a while it became apparent what was causing his discomfort. He had indigestion. His last meal wasn’t going down smoothly at all and was trying to escape! When they catch something like a dragonfly they take it to their favoured perching spot and then beat it against the branch to kill it. Obviously this bird hadn’t thumped the hapless insect hard enough. Eventually the bird sorted the problem out and flew off looking more comfortable. This was the sort of digestion problem that wouldn’t be fixed with a bit of Mylanta.