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A specially awesome day
I always take my camera to the beach and today was a specially awesome day with the camera. We went early, to escape the heat, more than anything. As you can see, there was a shower around.
We said ‘good morning’ to the osprey looking down at us from his favourite perch
and waved to the Brahmani Kite high up in the pine tree.
Then we were treated to the spectacle of an osprey hunting. It came in low over shallow water. Dived so deep it disappeared, then came back up again, fighting for the sky. I say ‘fighting’ – I think they do it pretty easily with those huge wings. The fish caught securely in its talons, it headed back up the beach to find a place to eat.
If you’d like to see more of my eagle pictures, you might like ‘When the universe tugs at your lead’ or ‘photographing Brahmani kites’.
Photographing Brahmani Kites
Pictures of this majestic raptor always brings oohs, aahs and wows from people. Yet in many respects, they’re the easiest of my targets. The reason is two fold.
1) I know where to find them
2) They’re not shy
Our part of the bay supports a pair of Brahmani Kites. I’ll often find them on the tidal flat near Tooan-tooan Creek, where they’ll perch on driftwood or an exposed rock – anything where their tail is clear of the ground. Unlike the sand pipers and the white egret, they’ll let me get reasonably close. As they’ve got to know me, that’s increasingly close.
They’ll fly off if I intrude too much – especially if they’re protecting dinner.
If they’re not on the tidal flats, they may be at a favourite roost in the mangroves above the creek.
Or they may be up the other end of the beach, where a line of rocks is exposed at low tide. In fact, I got my bestest pictures of the pair together at that spot. You can see them here and here. If you want those you’ll have to pay for them.
And because they’re so big, they flap their wings slowly and glide so the camera can stop the motion. It’s much harder to get a clear picture of a small bird or an insect in flight because they move so fast and their wings move so fast. For flying shots, the camera is set to ‘sports’ mode, which means maximum shutter speed. That means you sacrifice the amount of light you get in the camera, and depth of field, so for the best shots, I need a bright day.
Share the pictures on this post by all means – just credit me the copyright.
