Bottlebrush posers

I was admiring a flowering bottlebrush when the leaves flew away; a couple of dozen Silvereyes had been dancing amongst the blossoms.

 

bottlebrush pose 3

Silvereye
Canon 5D3, 100-400mm L IS USM

 

Over the next few hours I gradually crept closer to the bottlebrush and managed to capture some images of the busy little Silvereyes that showed the details of their feathers.

 

 

bottlebrush pose 1

Silvereye
Canon 5D3, 100-400mm L IS USM

 

 

It’s not often that I get a shot that shows a tiny bird’s back so clearly while its head is at a pleasing angle. I have a ‘thing’ about head angles, preferring the head to be turned towards the camera, too far one way and the bird’s head is turned away from the camera, too far the other way and the bird is facing the camera head-on. There are times when such shots are great, I’m trying to stop deleting them!

 

 

 

bottlebrush pose 2

 Silvereye
Canon 5D3, 100-400mm L IS USM

 

I very much enjoyed watching the Silvereyes’ acrobatics, especially as they are so much tinier than the blossoms on which they were feeding.

The images I’ve shared in this post have clear backgrounds, others that I took show Silvereyes lost amongst the foliage. If my internet connection (or lack thereof) hadn’t already caused me to spend several hours just trying to update lirralirra I’d add another image but I’ll save that for another time.

Taking these images was challenging as Silvereyes move rapidly. I tried to count how many times they dipped their bills into the bottlebrushes and my best calculation was three dips per second – that’s a lot of movement to try to freeze. Then there was the issue of the background and the changing light conditions meaning I was constantly leaning and changing the camera settings. Added to that was the wind which was merrily blowing the blossoms in every direction. Trying to keep the focus point on the eye of the Silvereye while it was darting around, dancing up and down on each blossom and being blown about by the wind was a fun challenge that I hope to do again before the blossoms fade away for another year.

Happy birding, Kim

 

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