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These mesmerising birds always enthral me and it’s interesting how even the tiniest change of pose can make a marked difference to the portrait.

I met up with some of my beautiful family at the Healesville Sanctuary today; it was overcast and a bit cold but absolutely wonderful. It was gorgeous to see the little ones excited about birds and beetles, koalas and kangas.

This Bush Stone-curlew lives in the parrot flight aviary. They are secretive birds that rely on camouflage rather than flight for protection which makes them easier to photograph, if you’re lucky enough to spot them in the first place! Their calmness is especially appreciated in overcast conditions which affect the settings I can use on my camera. Today that meant using a relatively slow shutter speed of 1/800th of a second and a very high ISO of 2500.

They feed mainly at night, foraging on the ground for invertebrates, small reptiles and the occasional small mammal.

I was sitting on the ground for these shots and by opening the aperture as wide as possible I decreased the depth of field, which blurred the background and enabled the bird to stand out. If I’d taken this shot with my phone, the background, which was close behind the bird, would have been just as sharp as the subject.

I like both of these portraits, especially the head angles, but find the shot above more engaging. The bird turned towards its reflection in my lens and fluffed up its feathers. If you flip back and forth between the two images you’ll see how much fluffier its neck and chest look in the second shot. I love the way its feathers are standing out from each other, giving them more definition.

A photograph of this species, that I took in the wild a few years ago, now graces the front cover of a novel. I really must read it, soon!

Happy birding, stay safe, Kim

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