Bunyip State Park + Warburton

It has been way too long since I have been out birding so, despite the weather forecast, I was glad to get out into Bunyip State Park today with the Melbourne Birdlife Photography group.

We spent the morning at Dyer's Picnic Ground on the delightfully named Black Snake Creek Road. Unfortunately, the weather prediction was pretty much spot on: heavily overcast with frequent showers. This made the light very poor and there were not many birds around but when life gives you lemons, make lemonade...so I took the opportunity to practice using fill flash with the Better Beamer. This requires a balancing act of finding the right ISO and aperture settings to get the background exposure with enough light so you don't get a bird on black background and dropping the flash power sufficiently to not over expose the bird or make the flash look too obvious. The two shots below are the best I came up with during the morning but I didn't quite get the balance right - there's still too much flash. This is most noticeable in the eyes - ideally you need to get the flash off camera as much as possible but I don't have a flash bracket so there's a little work needed in Lightroom to remove the eyeshine. Also, the shadows in the background are too obvious - this mostly due to the background being too close to the subject. Ideally, it is good practice to watch your background and move around o get the best possible background but there's not much you can do with small birds in low vegetation and you only have a few seconds to get the shot.

Brown Thornbill, Dyer's Picnic Ground, Bunyip State Park
Pentax K-3, Sigma 300mm f/2.8 + 1.4x adapter, ISO 800, f/5.6, 1/180 (+fill flash)

Grey Fantail, Dyer's Picnic Ground, Bunyip State Park
Pentax K-3, Sigma 300mm f/2.8 + 1.4x adapter, ISO 800, f/5.6, 1/180 (+fill flash)

The afternoon stops did not yield much worth photographing so I took a drive through the park through to Powelltown, where I planned to take at least a short walk along the Powelltown Rail Trail but, as I arrived, it started to rain heavily so I continued the scenic drive through some back tracks to Warburton, where I managed to find a pair of Australian Wood Ducks roosting on a tree in the Yarra River.

Australian Wood Duck (male), Yarra River, Warburton
Pentax K-3, Sigma 300mm f/2.8 + 1.4x adapter, ISO 800, f/9, 1/180 (+fill flash)

Australian Wood Duck (female), Yarra River, Warburton
Pentax K-3, Sigma 300mm f/2.8 + 1.4x adapter, ISO 800, f/9, 1/180 (+fill flash)

The combination of larger birds and greater separation from the background made these shots more successful with the fill flash.

Point Nepean National Park

As I was going to have time before the last ferry on my way home from the Birdlife Melbourne Photography Group day out on Mornington Peninsula, I decide to do a quick reconnaisance into Point Nepean National Park to check it out as a location for a future birding trip. This National Park encompasses the old quarantine station and military fortifications on Point Nepean (see National Park website) as well as some great remnant coastal scrub and relatively unspoiled beaches.

I drove through to Gunnery Cottage (as far as you can drive your own car--any further is on foot, bike or pay for the shuttle bus)--and took the 400m Walter Pisterman Walk to Observatory Point, on the way spotting a flock of Brown Thornbills doing their last minute feeding. Again, low light made photography difficult but I managed to get one shot with flash that captured most of a bird.

Brown Thornbill,
Walter Wisterman Walk, Point Nepean National Park

I arrived at Observatory Point in time to catch the last rays of sunshine peaking through the clouds over Port Phillip Heads.

Sunset over Port Phillip Heads
Observatory Point, Point Nepean National Park

Observatory Point is the location of the ruined Cattle Jetty.

Observatory Point, Point Nepean National Park

I spotted three Pacific Gulls circling around a spot a few hundred metres offshore. On closer inspection, they were harassing a fur seal that had captured (what I subsequently--see below--found out to be) a squid.

Pacific Gull and Australian Fur Seal
from Observatory Point, Point Nepean National Park

One of the birds managed to get hold of the remnants of the seal's meal and bring it to shore.

Pacific Gull (immature)
Observatory Point, Point Nepean National Park

After several unsuccessful attempts to swallow the morsel whole and an equally unsuccessful attempt to tear it apart, the bird abandoned it and flew away to land on the other side of me giving some interesting silhouette shots as the sunset in the background. (In the meantime, I managed to check out the abandoned meal and it was what was left of a squid)

Pacific Gull (immature)
Observatory Point, Point Nepean National Park

The gull eventually took off and circled around overhead for a few minutes giving me time to change the camera settings to try for a proper silhouette (helped a little by Photoshop later)

Pacific Gull
Observatory Point, Point Nepean National Park

and to top off the birds in flight, an Australasian Gannet and squadron of Australian Pelicans did a last minute fly-by/over.

Australasian Gannet
Observatory Point, Point Nepean National Park

Australian Pelican
Observatory Point, Point Nepean National Park

By the time I reached the ferry terminal in Sorrento, the sun was well and truly set but I couldn't resist trying to get these two Silver Gulls standing on the pier railing.

Silver Gull (adult on left, immature or right), Sorrento Pier

and one more with flash, just to see if I could get anything useful...I'm not sure, I'll leave it to the readers to judge...

Silver Gull (adult on left, immature or right), Sorrento Pier

Mt Richmond National Park

After the morning's seabird watching, I headed inland to one of my favourite places in SW Victoria: Mt Richmond National Park (see map). Mt Richmond is an extinct volcano that is a remnant oasis of mixed eucalypt forest and swampy heathland surrounded by farmland. It is a spectacular place for wildflowers in spring but also has a great diversity of birdlife year-round. The park is easily accessed from Portland-Nelson Road via Stephens Road and Mt Richmond Road but can also be accessed using a variety of tracks that are fine for 2WD unless very dry or very wet.

Old South Boundary Track, Mt Richmond National Park

The summit picnic ground, at the end of Mt Richmond Road, is a great place for bush birds and offers a range of short walks. The rainy weather diluted (pun intended) my enthusiasm for any extended walks so I spent time taking short strolls out and back along several of the walking tracks. With dark clouds overhead and dense vegetation, there was very little light in some areas so I pushed the ISO to 800 to give a bit more speed but even that was not enough to capture this Brown Thornbill that, a split second before, had been beautifully perched on the bracken frond.

Brown Thornbill, Mt Richmond National Park

I spent about 10 minutes trying to find a reasonable view of a small flock of Red-browed Finches that were very active in a dense patch of bush but this was the best I could do

Red-browed Finch, Mt Richmond National Park

I also found a White-throated Treecreeper feeding on tree trunks in the picnic ground.

White-throated Treecreeper, Mt Richmond National Park

As I was trying to get a better viewpoint to get a side-on shot, the bird flew to a puddle on the track for a drink.

White-throated Treecreeper, Mt Richmond National Park

It only stayed a few seconds before it was chased off by another customer who had an alternative use for the puddle.

White-browed Scrubwren, Mt Richmond National Park

While watching these antics, this little character landed in the tree right next to me - right at the close focal limit of the lens.

Superb Fairy-wren, Mt Richmond National Park

Heading home

Bush birds by the beach, Ocean Grove

The Ocean Grove Spit is a 2 km long sand dune complex that separates Bass Strait from the Barwon River Estuary View Map. The dunes are covered in coastal scrub consisting mainly of Leptospermum, Kunzea and Acacia.

A short walk along the river side at lunchtime today revealed thornbills, silvereyes and fairy wrens highly active amongst the flowering Kunzea and Acacia bushes.

Silvereye, Ocean Grove

Brown Thornbill (juvenile), Ocean Grove