I was outside with my dogs, at 11pm, when I suddenly remembered it’s Friday.
Canon 5DSR, Canon 200-400mm L IS USM EXT
1/2500, f/6.3, ISO 1600, focal length 560mm
I raced back into the warm and spun the mouse wheel through my processed images. It stopped on this shot of a Little Pied Cormorant, which made me laugh aloud as I’m sure it’s expression is much the same as mine was when I realised I only had an hour to work on this week’s post.
It’s been a busy week as we gradually emerge from the very successful lockdown that has seen Victoria with zero cases for the past 13 days. I’ve been working to clear the fallen branches that came down in our recent winds. Today Ben Shannon, the Resilience Trees aborist, trimmed a large Swamp Gum (Eucalyptus ovata) that fell recently. I didn’t want its leaves to become tinder dry just in time for summer. I highly recommend Ben if you have trees you care about, I’ll add his contact details to my links page.
Little Pied Cormorants are black above and white below, with a relatively short yellow bill. Immature birds, like this one, are similar to adults except that adult birds have white above their eyes.
They live across Australia at all kinds of wetlands where they dive for crustaceans, including yabbies, and some fish. They are similar to the Pied Cormorant but they are smaller, with shorter bills and without the Pied Cormorant’s orange face patch and black thighs.
I’ll finish this week’s post with a super cute lockdown story. I’ve been able to catch up with family, which has been overwhelmingly wonderful, including the twins who turned one in August. It’s been so hard only seeing them on Skype and facetime calls. Imagine how beautiful it was when they visited. One of them saw me and began running towards me across the grass, almost as quickly as I ran to her. As I bent down to her she stopped about half a metre in front of me, smiling and waving, as though I was still on a screen. I held my arms out and was soon hugging her and her sister. Absolute bliss.
Happy birding, Kim
~ Facebook page Kim Wormald – lirralirra
~ Facebook group Ethical Bird Photography
PS I will answer last week’s comments as soon as I can
