Well whose idea was it to go chasing Rainforest birds?
Give me waders anyday, Clean backgrounds are fairly easy to come by, throw a rainforest into the mix and you start to have your work cut out for you.
NPS Australia kindly lent me a 500MM F4 for my trip which helped with isolating unwanted background elements.
My base for the trip was Kingfisher Lodge in far north Queensland – temporary home of the magnificent Buff Breasted Paradise Kingfisher (From herein affectionately called Buffy). A striking blue and orange bird with a long white forked tail, it migrates from Papua and New Guinea to this area every year to nest in the termite mounts found here.
*** insert photo of termite mound.
The lodge offers a few different accommodation choices;
Bunkhouse – shared communal showers and cooking shed (Great option if you are on a budget – basic but comfortable)
Units – self contained including shower,toilet and cooking facilities (More expensive but more comfortable to boot)
Camping is also permitted – either way you need to bring ALL your own supplies.
Keith and Lindsay (The hosts) are very friendly and skilled birders, they conduct early morning walks and night spot lighting tours of the grounds – CANT recommend them highly enough!!!!
A short stroll around the grounds on my arrival produced numerous quality photographic opportunities with Buffy and a host of other birds.
F8, 1/40TH, 800 ISO, Manual Flash @ 1/ 8th power
In the heat of the day it can get very hot and humid – the stream at the back of the grounds was a good place to hang out as many species came to bath in the cool waters.
The Noisy Pita was another target species and whilst I did sight this bird on the first day – a decent photograph did not present.In the following couple of days – I did not see him again. The red necked crake could be heard calling at night but never once sighted him.
Lots of nesting activity -mainly high up in the rainforest canopy, Pacific Baza nesting with two chicks, Barn owls and Fig Parrots nesting high up in a dead tree branch in the grounds and Red Browed finches busy building nests all over the place.
Equipment recommendations for this portion of the trip.
2 Bodies – wish I had taken a second body, If I had I would have set one up to monitor a Buffy nesting site and told it to take a shot every 10 seconds via the intervalometer that is present in the D3.
500mm or longer lens
1.4 & 1.7 x Converters
Flash with better beamer
Remote Video Trigger – could also be handy
Batteries – lots for the flash, used the flash 98% of the time at low power settings.
Tripod and or Monopod – I used the monopod more than the tripod – much more maneuverable and easier to carry – you will be doing quite a lot of walking.
Flight photography is going to be pretty difficult – dark conditions and not a lot of open areas.
Insect Repellant – although it really is not going to help much.
Stay tuned for my next report.
