Cisticola

Something completely different this week, and if anyone has a moment to spare I would appreciate your thoughts.

 

Golden-headed Cisticola (Cisticola exilis)
1/2500, f/6.3, ISO 1600

 

Golden-headed Cisticola were my nemesis bird for several years. Many times I’d be just a few metres from them but completely miss the shot, other times I’d go the the Werribee Treatment Plant especially hoping to see them but they’d stay hidden – though other people would miraculously find them. At the treatment plant this week they were ubiquitous.

Golden-headed Cisticola are small insect eaters that weigh only 10g and measure about 10g. During the breeding season the males become beautifully golden, and they raise the feathers on their heads and sing their socks off from vantage points on the tops of low bushes and reeds.

I’m not sure whether or not this image ‘works’, at first I thought it didn’t, then I thought it did and now I’m wavering. For disclosure, I have done a little cloning, which I don’t usually do, to remove some stray twigs and a shadow.

Happy birding

Kim

 

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