Western Treatment Plant - Birds in Flight

Visited the Western Treatment Plant today on a BOCA trip photographing birds in flight. The morning started off cool, overcast and windy - not great for photography but the whole idea was to practice handholding long lenses when shooting birds in flight so any practice is good practice :-)

Did manage a few half reasonable shots (and lots of misses...)

What better bird to practice on...?

Silver Gull, Western Treatment Plant

We were set the challenge of tying to shoot birds with complex background rather than just against a blank sky. I managed a couple of pelican shots:

Australian Pelican, Western Treatment Plant

Another challenge was trying to shoot birds at a distance so they are small in the viewfinder (making it difficult to find them and then keep them in the focus point). Managed to do this with this pair of shelducks. Even though these birds are a long way away and the contrast is quite high showing little detail on the birds, it's tack sharp so I'm quite happy with that!)

Australian Shelduck, Western Treatment Plant

At the end of the session we found the Long-toed Stint that had been here for a few weeks now but moves around among several ponds (helps to be out with the experts!) and managed a few shots - a long way off but good enough to ID the bird and it even showed off it's long toe. First time photographing this species, so thanks JB :-)

Long-toed Stint, Western Treatment Plant

Also got some other birds not in flight (see next post).