Ooooerrrr! That’s probably not the best thing to say in a blog about bird photography. Rest assured no ducks were harmed in the making of this blog entry.

A little while ago I wrote about how my ability to photograph birds had deserted me. Well I can now report that yesterday morning I had a stonker of a morning. I parked up at my usual spot on the River Avon and before I had got my camera bag out of the car I could hear a couple of Brown Goshawks calling out to one another. I could only find one of the birds and it was obligingly sitting in the top of a tree and the first light of dawn was illuminating it nicely. I could hardly believe it! It just kept sitting there unfazed by my proximity and it was I who eventually moved on leaving it there calling out to its mate. This was the best start I’ve had in a very long time and if I’d seen nothing else this would have been tremendous. Just 20m further on and I found a pair of Nankeen Night Herons. By this time I had a grin that went from ear to ear. Walking up to Mile Pool things just got better and better.

 

 

We’ve had some really hot days with temperatures exceeding 40ºC and this has meant there were a lot of birds congregated in the trees around the few remaining pools of water. By 8am the temperature was starting to soar and there was less bird activity. So I changed lenses and went looking for dragonflies and damselflies. I found some but the warmth had supercharged them and they were proving difficult to photograph as they would not sit still for very long. At 8:30am I decided that it was too hot and decided to call it a day. As I started to put my camera away I glimpsed a white bird sitting in the top of a dead tree. At first I thought it was just a corella, but there was something about the way it was moving made me think it was something else. Looking through the camera I could see those unmistakeable red eyes of a Black-shouldered Kite. Panic set in now as I didn’t have the right lens on. So calming myself down I changed lenses and started making my way closer to the bird. Usually what I do is wait for the bird to look in another direction then edge forward by a metre. I then stop take a few photos and then when it looks away again edge forward and take more photos. Like this I managed to get within 20m of the Kite. It looked quite relaxed spending most of its time scanning the ground below looking for food. After a little while it did a dump – birds often do this just before taking off, I suppose it lightens the load – and then took off in a lazy curve towards some taller trees. It was bloody brilliant! My only regret was that because there was insufficient cover I couldn’t get closer, but there’s always next time.