Plumed Whistling-Ducks

The far north and part of eastern Australia is home to the two whistling-duck species found in Australia, well now we may have three, as the Spotted Whistling-Ducks from Papua New Guinea is possibly breeding in northern Queensland. The two commonly found whistling-ducks are the Wandering and the Plumed.

These Plumed Whistling-Ducks, were in good numbers at most wetlands in the Broome area in February. They can easily be told from the Wandering Whistling-Duck by the pink bill and legs and the fantastic long plumes on the flanks.

Probably a male and female, as most were paired and calling to each other with their high-pitched whistling calls when alarmed or flying.

Honeyeaters of Broome

Some more photos from my recent trip a few weeks ago to the Broome / Derby area with my cousin Fred. These are some of the many honeyeater species found in the north of Western Australia and all of these pictured honeyeaters can be found at the Broome Bird Observatory.

One of the most common honeyeaters of the area is the Rufous-throated Honeyeater.

With the top end's wet season in full swing, many bird species were nesting or had young, including the Rufous-throated Honeyeaters.

A young Brown Honeyeater, just out of the nest recently.

A fleeting shot of a White-gaped Honeyeater.

One of the largest of the honeyeater group, a Little Friarbird. There are 4 species of Friarbirds which occur in the north of Australia and replace the large Wattlebird honeyeaters of southern Australia.

The mangroves around Broome are home to the small Red-headed Honeyeaters, such as this female.

The male Red-headed Honeyeaters have the beautiful intense red colour on the head.

Images of Koolan

One of the most beautiful and interesting places in WA to do a fauna survey is Koolan Island. I've just returned from a ten day fauna survey during the top end's wet season and wow was it hot and humid. You could not spend ten minutes doing work outside without being totally soaked in sweat.

Due to a very big low pressure system in Northern Territory there were huge thunderstorms over the island every day, during the first five days. One day the island received just under 2 inches of rain in one hour! Not very good when you have pit trap buckets in the ground, many just popped out or started to fill up.  It was interesting to see many reptile species just sitting together without fighting on the refuge rocks and sticks we placed in the buckets.

The flight to Koolan Island is on a small plane from Derby, mostly flying over vast areas of mudflats and mangroves before reaching the islands and ocean.

The wet season in the north turns every thing green and is the best time for wildlife, if you can handle the high humidity due to all the water everywhere.

There are a number of active mining pits on the island. This is one of the old flooded ones from previous years that may be restarted, as the big vein of iron-ore runs along the island through here.

Huge 200+ ton trucks run day and night, but they are stopped during heavy wet season rains when the mine roads turn into bogs. A standard family car would not come half way up one of the tyres on these monsters! There have been a couple of accidents in the mining industry, where huge trucks like these ran over and crushed flat a 4WD (parked in the wrong area) and didn't even notice.

The accomodation on Koolan has more of a resort feel than a mining site. The views from most of the rooms are wonderful.

A view of the survey site. As you can see there's not much flat ground for trap sites and look at all the rock, a hard slog to get pit buckets in, if you can get any in! The soil is usually full of large rocks with most of the plants sending their roots in between. The most commonly caught reptile in these areas was the rock skink ( Ctenotus inornatus). See Koolan Island post October 2009

It was a hard time of year, but I look forward to going back sometime for another survey and maybe I'll bring my fishing rod. I hear there's some great fishing in these wonderful waters, as long as you look out for the sharks and crocs!

Broome Waders

Broome is the best place to see migratory waders in Western Australia, if not the whole of Australia. Recently my cousin Fred and I went for a quick trip to see what new birds we could find, including stories of a rare vagrant Semipalmated Plover the had been seen at the Broome sewage ponds.

Roebuck Bay at the Broome Bird Observatory. The rising tide forces the waders into groups along the shore, often forming huge grey masses in the small sandy bays.

Waders even in large groups are sometimes hard to see among the areas of scattered grey rocks on the seashore.

When high tide hits, which can be over 11 metres, many smaller wader species are forced to shelter on many of the bigger rock islands. This group contained large numbers of Great and Red Knots, Greater and Lesser Sand Plovers, Curlew Sandpipers and Grey-tailed Tattlers, as well as Broad-billed Sandpipers, Grey and Pacific Golden Plovers.

At high tide Bar-tailed and Black-tailed Godwits formed huge groups before flying off to other feeding locations.

Other waders such as Whimbrels, Great and Red Knots also formed their own groups before flying to other areas.

Black-tailed Godwits flying at high tide.

The huge Eastern Curlews dwarf even the larger waders such as Bar-tailed Godwits.

A small wetland north of Broome towards Derby, had a pair of delicate Marsh Sandpipers.

The best view we could get of the Semipalmated Plover at the Broome sewage ponds, was stand on the back of the car and look through a high security fence. The Semipalmated tended to hang around with Black-fronted Dotterels, such as the one on the right.

One of the more common waders of the Broome area, Greater Sand Plover.

 Another of the more common waders, a beautiful Grey-tailed Tattler.

All in all it turned to be a great trip with us seeing a total of 125 species in the Broome/Derby area in five days. Fred supplied all the photos while I took video, which I still have to edit, but that will have to wait as I have another fauna survey in the far north at Koolan Island waiting for me.

Modern Nature Photography Comments

Thank you for all your comments. It's interesting to see how people view nature and modern nature photography. Most of us seem to be ok with how photographers take their photos (including Photoshop), as long as the photograping hoards are not anywhere near us.

It seems that majority of us also try to educate people through our photography, but share the concern of humanity's ongoing ignorance and lack of concern when it comes to nature.

As for sharing our pictures, yes I agree, someone using a personal picture of me for commercial purposes without my consent is not on. My general nature pictures might be ok, but not personal ones.

There are a couple of other environmental issues I'm interested in getting people's views on, so hopefully I'll post those soon.

Modern Nature Photography - Like Ordering Pizza

Is any talent needed for good nature photography? Any skill or knowledge? Give a young kid a long lens, good camera on auto and some instruction in Photoshop and he will probably produce an award winning photo.

I sometimes come across some wildlife photographers during my birdwatching. Modern warriors with long camo canons, with multiple shots firing every second that make it sound like a bad day in Iraq. 200 shots later, yep I should have a good one! Not good enough? Photoshop will make that perfect! Was any skill or talent really used? Were the camera and computer the real photographers?

I feel sorry for the professional photogaphers who really do know their stuff and make a living out of it. With so many award class photos out there taken by the advanced cameras and computers, the pros must really have to work hard. That special shot is now needed, of a lion dragging a gazelle while a croc pulls at the other end and a vulture sits on top, during a beautiful sunset and a bushfire in the background at an African waterhole.

High class photos now flood the internet and blog sites, with some animal species it seems like only the background or angle changes. They all start looking a bit the same.

Don't get me wrong, people going out in the fresh air doing nature photography is great. Many would say it increases our appreciation of nature, but I'm not so sure. The general public still seems very ignorant of ecological processes and issues, even after the hundreds of television nature programs and David Attenborough films over many years. Some photographers I know have no idea of what animal or plant species they are taking a photo of, it's just a nice photo!

Do many modern photographers really care about nature or is it just the quick photo? The early nature photographers carried their big film cameras into remote wilderness areas and developed a real love for these areas, often fighting intense campains to save these places.

The Ansel Adams, the Olegas Truchanas, early great photgraphers who knew how light, film and camera worked. They did not fire off 200 shots to get a good one and then play with it in Photoshop to make it perfect! They had to know their art, and photography is an art. They often had one shot and you had to get it right! Film was expensive and you didn't know what you got until you developed it.

A challenge for modern photographers - put your camera in manual, take one shot per minute and don't play with it in any form. Maybe even just take black and white. See how good you really are.

I have seen many poor, often blurred photos on blog sites, but with many followers leaving comments on how wonderful the shot is! Have we become use to our pizza diet of photography? Many of these people even copyright their photos. Why? Do we have a false sense of how good we are?

Actually, unless you're a professional why copyright and lock your photos away? I have many slides and photos and jpegs that just sit stored away. Who see them? Usually after an intial showing to family or friends they just sit there getting old. When I die someone will probably throw them out or just delete them! So much for my precious photos. If photos are on the web, maybe it's better to share them and if someone use them so what? They may just remain in use long after you're gone.

Yes photography is fun and a great hobby at what ever level you're at, but maybe we should learn how to be a good cook, instead of just ordering a pizza and thinking we made a great dinner.

Please leave some comments about what you think on the modern digital nature photography age.

Cape York Birding

In just over two weeks, 226 bird species and 35 new lifers for me. Not bad for this time of year in northern Queensland when it's hot and there can be torrential rain most days, but it's the best time of year to get the Cape York migrants and endemic birds.




This was a birding-on-the-go trip with binoculars, scope/tripod and my small HV40 camcorder and Lumix TZ6. The reason for the smaller gear was the bird tour and flight to Cape York with a baggage limit of 16kg, my bag already weighed 16.5kg plus 7kg in my small backpack.

The plan was birding and wildlife spotting around Cairns, Daintree and woodland areas east of Cairns. Then a flight to Bamaga near the tip, staying at Seisia and birding in the Lockerbie Scrub, Woody Islands and the tip of Cape York.

A walk in the rainforest around Cairns will often find a prehistoric-looking Boyd's Forest Dragon (Hypsilurus boydii) resting on a small tree.

At this time of year many colourful female Boyd's Forest Dragons were laying eggs in sandy soil on the edges of forest tracks. At the end of the holiday we had seen 19 reptile species in total.

One of the great places to stay at Daintree for birdwatchers, Red Mill House. Wonderful area the Daintree, but the heat, humidity and mosquitoes were insane in the rainforest.

During the hot afternoon the best place was on the veranda under the fans. Where you could have a cup of tea and still do all your birding, watching birds flying through the rainforest.

The ever present Australian Brush-turkeys were always digging or running around in any rainforest area.

One of the smallest common tropical birds, an Olive-backed Sunbird. This female was nesting in her long sock-like woven nest, right near the stairs and window at Red Mill House and didn't seem the least bit worried about all the visitors.

The green and non-green war goes on. Near Julatten on a road were most residents have registered their rainforest blocks as small nature reserves or wildlife refuges, someone is rebelling!

The dreaded menace of northern Australia, the introduced Cane Toad (Bufo marinus). These big guys were everywhere plus thousands of young ones. With poison sacks on their bodies, they have reduced or wiped out many mammals, reptiles and birds that eat them across areas of the north. They have recently crossed the Western Australian border and may in time even reach Perth.

One of the more beautiful native large rainforest frogs, a White-lipped Tree Frog (Litoria infrafrenata).

Found on a walkway along a swamp, a wonderful small frog of eastern Australia, a Eastern Dwarf Tree Frog (Litoria fallax).

Even these poor fellows have to suffer the mosquitoes, Northern Barred Frogs (Mixophyes schevilli). At night you could hear their deep 'Wop' calls of these large frogs and and pick them up without them trying to escape.

Australian Bustards are generally an uncommon shy bird in Western Australia, but in the dry farm fields near Mt Carbine we counted more than a dozen birds in about two square kilometres.

One of our goals of the trip was to also see the mammal species of the area, so a journey to find the Mareeba Rock Wallaby (Petrogale mareeba) at Mareeba Gorge was made. We saw 12 mammal species in total, with the highlights being a Lumholtz's Tree Kangaroo near Cairns and a Spotted Cuscus at Cape York.

The journey ended at the northern most point of Australia, the tip of Cape York. There once was a nice big stainless steel sign till some thieving idiots cut and stole it recently. Now it's only an old car license plate with writing on it.

This trip was a highlight for me as the beautiful Red-bellied Pitta cracked my 500 Australian birds life list.