Photoclubalpha

thanks aster




i went back to the wetlands the other morning and tried to see if there are some activities before winter comes, i've seen kites and a sea-eagle but they were too far from my spot.....after 3 hours of stalking them, i head back to the car and calling it a day when suddenly something was flying over me at a close distance and got this



white-bellied sea-eagle (juvenile)

Looks like a Redpoll to me. They are just slightly smaller than a sparrow and flit quite fast. I love the first shot.

ACIPhotos wrote:Looks like a Redpoll to me. They are just slightly smaller than a sparrow and flit quite fast. I love the first shot.

Not the one above I mean the lovely little red finches on the previous page. Having looked them up I note you dont get Redpolls in Maryland. I've double checked and it is a bird called a "Purple Finch" even though it is red.

Anyway great bird shots all!

Love that Sea Eagle aa los banos, I don't think I've seen a Juvenile before, although I might have in the distance and thought it was a Kite maybe, I have to remember the really distinctive feature for distance recognition is the upsweep on the wings while soaring, I don't think too many other bops do that in quite the same way.
Greg

Super bird in flight shot AA. Great detail, colours and even a lovely catch-light in the eye. For me it is so often either the first shot out of the bag, or the very last that ends up being the favourite for a day.

thanks greg, yes and it flaps its wings very smoothly and very big wingspan

@birma, that's true for me also, the first or the last shots....thanks mate




got this the other day when i came back for the kites, i'm not quite sure if it's a black kite but this is a lifer for me

That's a tricky one aa los banos, it's got a tail like a Harrier, squarish with bars, the Black Kite is supposed to have a forked tail (and a dark eye), your one has a yellow iris and a grey beak, also yellow legs....hmm problem is a lot of them change eye colour from juvenile to adult as well. I think a closer choice might be the Square Tailed Kite, I can't quite decide for sure, but it doesn't look to have the forked tail though. Another one that's close is the Juvenile Swamp Harrier.
Greg

yes greg, it's a swamp harrier, confirmed it in the other forum too


thanks

The last time I went fishing in the Gulf this chap would cruise over the camp every morning to see if there were any dainty morsels left lying around, like fish backbones etc. so I snapped his photo one morning, the only camera I had to hand at the moment was the KM5D + KM18-200 so it's not up to todays camera standards with a high quality prime I guess...but I'm pretty sure this bop was the Black Kite...just for comparison, there were some Wistling Kites hanging around as well but they were quite a bit more skittish.
Greg

KM5D KM18-200

a great capture greg and has the wing spread too.....yes, i think that's the black kite




whistling kite from the same day capturing the swamp harrier, sharing.....

Yep I reckon that's a Whistling Kite, has that distinctive underwing light contrasting backfeathers in just the right location, overall though it's quite a bit lighter in colouration than the ones here, ours are a bit darker generally, actually I think my Black Kite should be a bit darker also but I have always had a bit of trouble getting the colour exactly right with the KM5D with nature shots, it's great for people shots though.
Greg

Nice shots AA and Greg, as well as an interesting lessons on Australian bop .

Excellent display of birds AA & Greg each one showing great detail
especially their undercarriage. I take my KM5D out the odd time &
still get good results as you did here Greg. Is there another fishing
expedition on the horizon. ? I sure hope so. ;^)

Thanks aa los banos, Birma and DA, actually the old KM5D would probably do a pretty good job even now with a top class lens I think.
We had a family get together the other day at a local tavern (this one has a function area and nice meals) for my fathers 90th birthday, I was talking to Dick and commented that the steak wasn’t as good as those Coleman R. steaks (knowing that this is the time of year for a trip up there); he said we mightn’t be sampling those for a while; and when I asked why’s that? He said he’d been in touch with the aboriginal mission about a possible campsite, (they control four sites, if ‘control’ and ‘campsites’ are the right words), but in any case you pay them $25 for the site access for a week (the definition of week seems quite flexible as well), anyway they said it had been raining a lot so the track into the area was very boggy at the moment i.e. impassable. Bit of a shame as there is a lot of photography to be had there; I remember one morning there was a Sea Eagle cruising up the river over the mangroves on the other side from the camp whereupon it was accosted by a couple of Kites, there was quite a dogfight for little while as I stood there with a cup of coffee in hand instead of a camera…The Eagle did a u-turn eventually and flew off back the way it came, harried by the Kites for some distance…I realized later the Kites probably had a nest with young somewhere nearby in the mangroves.
Greg

Oh well I guess I could always take a potshot at the unusually nervous Ibis in the backyard.
Greg
A700 KM100-300apo