Fishing Egret and acrobatic Galah

I was at Pt Henry late this afternoon and found a Little Egret fishing in the shallows. Fortunately, it was concentrating enough on the fishing to allow me to get reasonably close and adjust my position relative to the sun to keep the bird mostly backlit without too many reflections off the water behind the bird.

Little Egret, Pt Henry

It's a generally accepted 'rule' when photographing birds to try and keep the sun behind you shooting the birds in full frontal sunlight. However, rules are made to be broken and white birds like egrets and spoonbills photograph really well backlit. In full light it's difficult to get a balance between the white plumage and the rest of the shot as the contrast is too high. With backlighting, on the other hand, you can get the rim of light around the bird, show detail in the shaded body plumage and flight feathers appear translucent when wings are outstretched.

Little Egret, Pt Henry 

When foraging for fish in shallow water, egrets often try and spook the fish by jumping around and flapping their wings.

Little Egret, Pt Henry

Driving home along the Bellarine Hwy in Wallington, I spotted (and heard, even at 100 km/h) a flock of Galahs on the power lines beside the road. There are always a few that seem to find it amusing to "muck about' on the wires, doing loop-the-loops and hanging upside down...

Galah, Wallington

...while others prefer to just sit and watch the world go by.

Galah, Wallington