We spent a delightful day during January with friends we catch up with far too seldom. We were treated to lunch which turned into afternoon tea amid much relaxation and wonderful discourse. As I have become accustomed to, and acknowledged a few times in earlier posts, my camera comes out and I focus on the birds when they turn up at the expense of mein hosts 😕 - I am very fortunate to have family and friends who indulge! I have come to appreciate about many environments, that just "being" there allows the local avian residents to recognise no harm is intended and they provide rewarding glimpses of their life in return ... of course, with many "suburban" environments, there are often man-made incentives to attract them as well ... (the success of) several of these are illustrated in this post.
Not so long ago I presented a post offering a couple of "portraits" of the laughing kookaburras that frequent our home garden. This post features some more in a different home garden and one that provides a regular feeding regime they are accustomed to. This allowed some wonderfully candid portraits interspersed below, culminating with the said regular feed being very visible! A feature of these first several photos for me was the powerful pose contrasting the soft fluffy breast feathers with the very strong and hard beak. I especially enjoyed having the kookaburra look directly into the camera making the pose, I think, most powerful. The third photo of this opening set highlights the blue daubs that significantly brighten the dull brown wing feathers. The brown streak dissecting the crown is also directly striking in that pose.
A little later I had tracked a galah into the branches and foliage of a poinciana - offering a verdant perch in the first photo and mere grey weathered branches in the second, to show off the distinct pink chest and shoulder feathers that set off the white crown and grey wings ... once again, being still allows nature to show off her grandeur in striking ways when we pause to take notice. The third photo in this set I could not resist including for the splash of contrasting colours of the garden and ornaments, but also because in the spirit of the commentary above it highlights even our built environment can offer peace, tranquility and a sense of stillness 😑.
A couple more of the kookaburra. The first one a great photo staring straight down the fully zoomed lens over the top of the covered pizza oven with the palm frond for cover. The second one a few moments later in front of a different palm frond and perched on a pool fench waiting patiently for the feed - the wait almost done!
The next sequence I have included to demonstrate some behaviour ... first, two galahs perched atop the feeder cautiously surveying for safety; second, one galah beginning to feed in the feeder while one remained on guard and the third of the sequence with both in the feeder once they were satisfied it was "safe".
This next photo is one of my favourites from my portfolio so far. I love the sharing element of different bird types in the same feeder co-habiting peacefully ... something a tad incongruous for the rainbow lorikeet it must be said! While the vibrant palette of the lorikeet is a stark contrast to the "plainer" greyer palette of the crested pigeon, I think being in the foreground prompts a closer focus on the pigeon ... and this highlights how far from "plain" that greyer palette is ... the orange tinge of the eyes, grading to the soft pinky orange of the shoulder through the black, white, greens and purples of the wings (and even that does not do full justice to the variation). The bright green of the covering palm frond even contrasts with the soft darker but still verdant background. This is one of those photos that has a good composition but, honestly, only a composition that was noticed afterwards ... but an excellent lesson in what CAN be attained in composition with attention.
I included the next two simply to offer a sharper and clearer view of the colour palette I was trying to describe above for the crested pigeon. Capturing the pigeon looking in opposite directions sheds a different light and hopefully a glimpse of the variation I cannot do justice to with my words 😆 ... I really believe they are quite spectacular (even more so in full sun)!
To conclude this post I had to include the kookaburra enjoying the attention of the zoom lens once again, but this time at the end of a successful (if too easy) feed!
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