World Photography Forum

Wheat

Tannin — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 12:34:27 +0100

by: Tannin

Description: Just to prove that I don't only do bird pictures

4 comments

Winter? What winter?

Tannin — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 09:47:40 +0000

by: Tannin

Description: What is this winter thing you people are all talking about? Why is everything in all those other pictures a washed-out white colour, instead of a normal and proper reddish brown? Strange people, photographers. This little chap, and half a dozen of his friends, were having a delightful time perching on a fence in the sunshine and foraging industriously over the ground below it last Saturday. He is a Singing Bushlark, photographed near Boort, north-central Victoria, and it was a normal February day, humidity perhaps 10-15% and a nice cool 37 degrees.

3 comments

Ballion's Crake

Tannin — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 15:13:42 +0000

by: Tannin

Description: Tiny! Much smaller than the Spotted Crake.

3 comments

Australian Spotted Crake

Tannin — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 15:08:00 +0000

by: Tannin

Description: I seem to wind up taking a lot of pictures of these shy but charming creatures. I don't really have an excuse, I just like them. 500mm, 400 ISO 1/750, f/6.7

6 comments

New Holland Honeyeater

Tannin — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 11:58:02 +0000

by: Tannin

Description: Just to prove that I do actually use my camera now and again, don't just sit in front of the computer talking about it. This is a New Holland Honeyeater, a very common (all too common!) bird of southern Australia, particularly in heathy, low-growing areas with plentiful flowering shrubs, and also in urban and semi-rural areas where New Hollands tend to monopolise the garden, ruthlessly ganging up on other species and claiming the richest nectar. We tend to dislike them, of course, but when it's all said and done, despite their nasty habits, they are very striking creatures, and handsome in their own way.

4 comments

Wind

Tannin — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 14:19:42 +0100

by: Tannin

Description: One of several I took the other day. I haven't decided which one is the keeper yet, so I might come back and swap this over for another if I decide it's not the pick of the bunch. Oh ... but what is it? Let's just say it's a common and familiar thing and I liked the shapes a lot. I'll say more when I get back from a little trip in a few days.

2 comments

Lake Albacutya

Tannin — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 10:10:21 +0000

by: Tannin

Description: The Wimmera River flows north towards the great Murray River, but never reaches it. In a wet year, it empties into Lake Hindmarsh. In a very wet year, Lake Hindmarsh overflows and Outlet Creek takes its waters further north to Lake Albacutya. And in a [i]really[/i] wet year, Lake Albacutya overflows and Outlet Creek fills a series of ever-dryer lake beds scattered through the sand dunes of the Big Desert. Lake Albacutya last filled in 1974 and retained water until 1983. This is the vegetation near the southern bank, dominated by large River Red Gums with many hollows of all sizes, making them a sort of giant apartment building for hollow-nesting birds, such as Galahs, Mulga Parrots, and many others. The understory is richly diverse, and includes several rare plants. But for me, it was the colours of this superb autumn morning that caught my eye.

1 comment

Female Gang Gang Cockatoo

Tannin — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 12:55:40 +0000

by: Tannin

Description: In the late afternoon light, Gang Gang Cockatoos gather near a watering hole in the Lower Glenelg National Park to drink, calling, calling, calling to one another. 1/1000th, f/6.7 ISO 800, tripod

3 comments

Kangaroo Grass

Tannin — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 10:40:11 +0000

by: Tannin

Description: Sometimes I get tired of photographs with arresting key subjects, and a foreground and a background and something in the middle, and sightlines that lead the eye this way and that way to tie it all together into an interesting compositon. Sometimes, just as it's good to drink plain, ordinary water instead of fizzy stuff with flavouring, it's nice to have a picture without a subject, a picture that just [i]is.[/i] This is Kangaroo Grass ([i]Themeda triandra[/i]), and although our Australian native grasslands are the worst hit of all our many ecosystems, with less than 0.02% of the natural extent remaining - yes, that's a zero after the decimal point and before the two - Kangaroo Grass remains moderately common in some areas. It's rare to see more than small to mid-sized patches of it now (a fraction of a hectare), but 200 years ago it stretched for hundreds upon hundreds of kilometres, turning all the land the eye could see that characteristic rich golden-rufous brown each summer. In the mornings and the evenings when the sun is low, the play of light on a stand of Kangaroo Grass never fails to lift my spirits. (You really need a full-screen view for this to work, but I've done the best I can within the limitations of 800 x 600.)

4 comments

Xanthoreas

Tannin — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 13:03:31 +0000

by: Tannin

Description: For those who have seen my Grampians fire pictures, here is a scene, taken at the other end of the state but in broadly similar country, of healthy Xanthoreas.

5 comments

Regeneration

Tannin — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 08:49:26 +0000

by: Tannin

Description: Three weeks on and the Xanthoreas are sprouting already. This was a phenomenally hot fire which cracked stones open and burned right down to the bedrock, leaving nothing - but it would take an atom bomb to stop those tough, slow-growing old Xanthoreas.

5 comments

After the fire

Tannin — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 08:44:22 +0000

by: Tannin

Description: Three weeks after the massive Grampians bushfires. This is just a tiny slice of the area that burned in late January 2006. (Poor light makes a poor shot, but I thought it was worth documenting.)

3 comments

Yellow-footed Antechinus

Tannin — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 08:26:05 +0000

by: Tannin

Description: Yes, another one! I'm starting to think that these are not so unusual after all, as this is the third time I've seen one in the last 6 or 8 months. The tale of the shot is worthwhile, I think. It was a terrible day at Jalluka Conservation Park (near the Grampians, in western Victoria), with truly dreadful light, and although I was delighted to see no less than 4 Crested Shrike-tits all foraging together in the Yellow Gums, my shots were hopless, and I knew it. I'd got up at 5:30AM for this, and had nothing at all to show for my effort. By 9:30 or so I'd had enough and decided to go back to sleep for a while. I found a big old Yellow Box to throw my swag down under and dozed off. Maybe an hour or a half-hour later, I was half-woken by a scratching sound. I opened one eye and, all unfocussed, thought I could see a pardalote foraging on the Yellow Box trunk. "About time I saw a pardalote today", I thought .. "wait on, that's not a pardalote!" This was the fellow. I had to get up and fetch the camera out of the car, which spooked him of course, but I lay back and read a novel for a while and out he came again. I got quite a few shots, but from rather too far away to be much improvement on the last batch in Decmber. There was no point in taking yet more from the same position, so I threw caution to the winds and moved over practically to the base of the tree. He spooked again, naturally, but I squatted down and waited, smoked my pipe. It took about 20 minutes till he came out again, *much* closer this time. I pointed the camera at him and held the shutter down to auto repeat. He (or she perhaps, I don't know the sex) spooked the instant the 20D shutter clanged off, so I got this shot, one with just two back feet and a tail in it, and a close-up of the Yellow Box bark. Luckily, the first shot was a keeper.

8 comments

Yellow-footed Antechinus

Tannin — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 21:58:40 +0000

by: Tannin

Description: It's rare to see marsupials other than the obvious large and common ones (kangaroos, Swamp Wallabies, and so on). This is only the second time I've met this species. Antechinuses fill the same sort of ecological role that shrews fill in other parts of the world. Like almost all marsupials, they are primarily nocturnal, so I was rather lucky to meet this charming pair playing on a huge old Yellow Box log in Tottington State Park, near St Arnard in western Victoria.

6 comments