Port Stephens Pelagic

Flesh-footed Shearwater

Wilson's Storm-petrel

Since I'd taken up bird photography I had read with interest the reports of the various sightings recorded on the Port Stephen's Pelagic. During this time I've been on a number of Sydney pelagics and it struck me that even though the two pelagics are only a couple of hundred kilometres apart the birds recorded appeared to be significantly different. When the opportunity came up to go on the Port Stephens Pelagic it just so happened that it coincided with the recent sightings of the Great Shearwater on every other pelagic running out of the east coast. Unfortunately we were out of luck and didn't get to see this species. I've heard theories as to why they are visiting in relatively large numbers ranging from  changes to the magnetic field to climate change. It would probably shock my fellow passengers, but I didn't care that much as long as there were birds to shoot and preferably new ones.
Originally we were booked on the Saturday trip, but due to predicted bad weather and the number of enthusiastic participants, the trip was brought forward to the Friday.

Shy Albatross

We left the Nelson Bay wharf at approx. 7.00am and passed the heads with a few clouds in the sky and a band of storm clouds on the eastern horizon. As we neared the southern heads a sea eagle flew to a perch high in one of the fringing gum trees.
The boat must have been near capacity with about 14 people on board. It was a good mix of keen photographers and birders. A novice like me could be positioned to take photographs yet still be close enough to one of the experts to hear them call out and identify any new birds that arrived on the scene.  Once out of the heads it was soon apparent that it was not going to be a smooth trip with a decent swell and white caps visible.  Even though the weather looked threatening at times, we managed to avoid rain for the whole trip.

Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross

The first part of the ride out to the edge of the continental shelf was very quiet with only a couple of gannets flying overhead. A distant trawler drew us in like a magnet. Even at a distance you could see a mass of swirling birds around it. As soon as we got near the burly was used to draw the shearwaters away from the trawler and have them follow us. There were so many shearwaters about that it was often difficult to focus on one target. At this stage there were none of the rarer species about, but my previous images of the Wedge-tailed and Flesh-footed shearwater were so bad that I was happy to have the opportunity to improve my images. Besides if we didn't have these birds for company it would have been a pretty boring 3 hour trip to the shelf.

Black Petrel

Enough burly was dispensed to keep the shearwaters interested all the way to the shelf. Once we were drifting off the continental shelf a rag soaked in cod liver oil was tied off and dragged behind the boat. The slick created  proved to be very attractive to large numbers of Wilson's Storm Petrels. I'd not seen these delightful birds before and it was a pleasure to see them dance across the water surface picking up the tiny bits of burly left by the other bigger birds. Photographing these birds would be difficult at the best of times as they zipped about, however the direction of the slick meant unless you were into bum shots the light angle was never favourable. Of course if I hadn't forgotten to take my flash I could have used it for fill light and come away with more than just record shots.

Pomarine Jaeger

It wasn't too long before we had a visit from a Black Petrel that liked our company so much that it decided to stay. It proved to be rather timid as it was swamped by the smaller shearwaters when burly was thrown in its direction. Its preference for sitting on the water made getting a flight shot rather difficult. 
During our time drifting we also had a visit from a Great-winged Petrel and a couple of Pomarine Jaeger. Unfortunately neither of these species hung round long or close enough to be photographed well.

The return trip again had the shearwaters following behind in big numbers. They were joined at various stages by three species of albatross, including Shy, Indian Yellow-nosed and Black-browed. By this time the light was starting to fade due to high cloud, which explains the lack of punch in my albatross shots.

Wedge-tailed Shearwater

As we got closer to the heads a few Crested Terns and gulls joined the flock and a couple of kilometres from the heads a Sea Eagle made an unexpected but brief appearance. The last sighting for the day was a little penguin playing chicken with a game boat in the harbour.
I thoroughly enjoyed the trip as I saw and got to photograph some great birds in the company of some really friendly and helpful people. In particular Mick Roderick who did a wonderful job organising the trip and his brother Steve,  Allan Richardson and Rod Warnock for their expert knowledge and help.

Birds recorded on the trip were: 
Flesh-footed Shearwater, Wedge-tailed Shearwater, Short-tailed Shearwater,  Hutton's Shearwater (not seen by me), Fluttering Shearwater, Black Petrel, Great-winged Petrel, Wilson's Storm-petrel, Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross, Black-browed Albatross, Shy Albatross, Pomarine Jaegar, Australasian Gannet and White-bellied Sea-eagle. In all I managed to photograph three new birds.

Wyrrabalong National Park - Honeyeaters

Scarlet Honeyeater

The southern section of this park is only 5 minutes from home so I often find myself walking the coastal track in the company of my wife as we undertake our daily battle with middle age spread. Though this place is a wildflower showcase it is usually a bit of a bird desert so I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of honeyeater activity. During these walks I'm pretty much banned from bringing my camera as the associated backpack according to my wife makes me look like a wanker. It was on a recent walk that I noticed the Banksia serrata and grasstrees were in flower and attracting a lot of honeyeaters. From the track I could easily observe the wattlebirds, White-cheeked and new Holland Honeyeaters. Stopping and listening soon revealed that there were other species away from the track in the denser shrubs.

White-naped Honeyeater

In all I made three separate trips to coincide with either good early morning or late afternoon light. I soon found that that these honeyeaters took a little time to get active in the morning. I suppose they need the warmth to get the nectar flowing, or they are just too cold and lazy. Either way it wasn't until about an hour after sunrise that the photography was worthwhile. My strategy was simple: find a suitable grasstree flower spike where I would have the light in the right direction and a relatively clean background. Compared to finding the birds, finding a clean background was near impossible. I would have spent 80% of my time on location scouting out potential shooting sites. Even now I'm not really happy with the sites I have found. The more I get involved in bird photography the more I put importance and effort into finding a good background and setting.

Yellow-faced Honeyeater

Initially I thought that I might try calls to bring my subjects to the chosen perch, however I soon found this to be a rather fruitless exercise as the birds did not really take any notice. What did work was picking a flower spike that was producing a good nectar supply, as it was only a matter of time before the various honeyeaters took their turn to visit the spike. Of course there were species that prefer the banksia flowers or picking off insects amongst the leaves in the nearby trees. These species were photographed in a similar fashion without the need to move as the banksia flowers were always plentiful in the general area.

White-cheeked Honeyeater

I had contemplated using a portable hide but decided that the vegetation was too dense, so I settled on a bag hide. I'm not sure how much the bag hide helped, as I think the birds were going to visit the flowers regardless of my presence. I think that what helps in these situations is the fact that with the angle of the early morning and late afternoon sun you are in silhouette, or at least hard to make out.

Photographing the Scarlet Honeyeaters proved to be rather difficult with most of my first images suffering from blown (over exposed) reds. It was harder in my opinion to keep the reds from blowing than the whites. In the end I dropped the exposure by about 1/3 of a stop more than I would normally..

Noisy Friarbird

The other birds seen during my visits were:

Red Wattlebird, Little Wattlebird, New Holland Honeyeater, Spotted Pardalote, Rainbow Lorikeet, Black-face Cuckoo-shrike, White-browed Scrub-wren, Silvereye, Variegated Fairy-wren, Bar-shouldered Dove,

Kaikoura Pelagic

Kaikoura is a small coastal town on the north eastern coast of New Zealand's south Island. It is about 160 kms north of Christchurch  (2 hours drive). In recent years it has become a hub for ecotourism, with whale, seal, dolphin and bird tours all available.  It is not only the marine wildlife that draws the tourists, but the wonderful coastal scenery and the spectacular mountain backdrop. You don't necessarily need to take a pelagic to get close to the wildlife as there are some great spots close to town that are worth exploring. For instance there are usually New Zealand fur seals and shore birds found at the reserve on the tip of the Kaikoura peninsula. During my last visit I was able to approach to within a few metres of a blue penguin . The reason for all the marine activity is the nutrient rich 2km deep Kaikoura Canyon, that is only a few kilometres off shore.

On a recent trip to New Zealand I decided that if the weather was favourable I would take two short pelagic trips, having been on several pelagics on a previous trip. With its southerly latitude and close proximity to the deep Kaikoura canyon this is a great location to see many of the Albatross species.
The company that runs the pelagics is called Albatross Encounters. They offer several trips each day, with times varying slightly with the seasons. They do require a minimum number of people to book and favourable weather before any trip will proceed. A couple of benefits of using these operators are their excellent boats and very knowledgeable and helpful skippers/guides. On completion of the trip they will supply a list of all the species seen. They can also provide longer specialty trips if you can get enough interested people to take part.

Once on board the boat I always make my way to the rear on the same side as the skipper. I find this gives you the best arc of view and puts you on the same side that the skipper tends to favour. Obviously if this is not working for you in terms of light direction make your way to the other side without pushing too many tourists overboard. The trip lasts about 2 1/2  hours which, doesn't sound very long compared to many of the day trips offered in Australia, however given that it only takes about 20 minutes to get to where the action is, or even less if you happen to find a fishing boat closer in, it is more than adequate.  Ideally you want to photograph the birds in the sky, which makes for a more dramatic shot. You need a stiff breeze to be blowing. When the fishing boats can't be relied on to get the bird interested and in close, the skipper puts out a block of netted frozen meat. This will bring the birds in with constant activity in the air and on the water. It's worth photographing birds on the water as you will probably find that you will miss all the different species if you concentrate on the sky.

A 300mm prime lens or 100-400mm zoom would be ideal focal range as you are going to get birds at a distance and very close. There is always a temptation to take the 500mm, however given that the photography is pretty much full on for two hours it is not really practical. I suppose you could always use it to intimidate the other passengers so that they keep out of your way.
Even when the weather is fine and the sea is relatively calm I always wear a parka as an outer layer to protect against the inevitable spray. If you are expecting to spend a fair bit of time at the rear of the boat expect a bit of water around your feet.

Photography Tips
In situations like this where you are constantly having your background change from a dark sea to a bright sky along with dark and light birds, I find the quickest way to get reliable images is to work in manual mode. It is a steep learning curve, but worth it in the end. When you have mastered this method you need to adjust one dial at the most. Take plenty of test shots of various birds and fine tune your settings. Do this early. You may also find that your keeper rate improves if you concentrate on either dark or light coloured birds at one time, rather than constantly switching between the two. To make it even easier to narrow your exposure settings you can concentrate on shooting birds which have either the sea or the sky as a background (not always possible). Also try not to move about the boat too much but rather keep the angle of light in the same direction. Remember to check your histogram often and make any necessary adjustments.  The angle of view is also important as it helps to see the bird coming, this gives you time to set the camera up. 

The images in this article from top to bottom are: Kaikoura Range form the Peninsula, Salvin's Albatross, Blue Penguin, Cape Petrel, White-capped Albatross,  Westland Petrel and Northern Royal Albatross.

During this recent couple of trips I managed to photograph the following birds:
 Northern Royal Albatross, Southern Royal Albatross, Wandering Albatross (Gibson's), Bullers Albatross, White-capped Albatross, Salvin's Albatross, Giant Northern Petrel, Westland Petrel, White-chinned Petrel, Cape Petrel, Hutton's Shearwater, White-fronted Tern plus some of the common species.

Munmorah SCA

We set off to Munmorah SCA to try and get some decent images of the Southern Emu-wrens. We had previously seen the Emu-wrens in the heathland near the camping ground, so we had a reasonable expectation of success.   We set up the hide in an area that looked promising. The background would be smooth as the  vegetation was uniform and at a good distance. A couple of potential perches were located within view of the hide.
Rather than immediately focus on the Emu-wren we decided to let things settle down for a while.
Given that we could hear a Bar-shouldered dove call in the distance we played it's call. Within a couple of minutes we had about five birds come in close to investigate.

Two of these birds landed on our selected perch. The bonus was that they started to perform a display which involved fanning their tail feathers and raising them.  After being entertained by the Doves we decided to try our luck with the Dusky Woodswallows that we saw on the way to our location. Much the same as with the doves, the woodswallows responded reasonably quickly to their call. First to visit our perches were two juveniles closely followed by a single adult bird. It was great to see the different stages of maturity. It was now time to give the Emu-wrens a go. Unfortunately we had no success, not even a glimpse. Even though it was after 9.00am the light was still good due to some high cloud so we decided to move the hide 200 metres towards the coast. 

More success at this location, but alas only glimpses of the elusive birds.

There is so much good heath habitat within that reserve that we will have plenty of opportunities to track down more photogenic  Emu-wrens in other locations.
All was not lost as an obliging New Holland Honeyeater settled in a low branch near the hide.

Wandering Tattler _Soldiers Point, NSW.

A Wandering Tattler had been seen at Soldiers Point by Alan Morris so there was a good chance that it would still be there when I paid a visit the next day. We timed our 4pm visit to coincide with the low tide as access to the rock shelf is tide dependant.

I was initially concerned as there were no obvious birds present. We headed to the far eastern end and after a few minutes of searching found a group of Red-necked Stints and Ruddy Turnstones. Then a wave crashed onto the shelf flushing all the birds out into an open area. A lone tattler was seen, which immediately caught my attention as it appeared darker than tattlers normally seen here. I was able to approach reasonably close. A series of waves drove the bird closer.


It's behaviour also seemed different, as it was very active and when it became aware of my presence it started  bobbing its bum. After a short time it got accustomed to my presence and settled down to feeding at about 10 metres distance. I got some images that  I was reasonably happy with, though I will try for more in better light.

I would suspect that this is the same bird that was earlier reported at Long Reef.

Normally I wouldn't go out of my way to get an image of a particular bird, but given that this is a rarity and was in my local patch I think it was worth the effort. The experience will also allow me to better identify this species in the future.