I like photographing preening birds and Swan Lake is the perfect spot to photograph swans.
Black Swan (Cygnus atratus)
1/1600, f/13, ISO 1600
Photographs of preening birds make me happy. It means they are comfortable with the presence of the photographer, that aspect of bird photography is important to me. There are many photographs doing the rounds of fluffed up birds staring into the camera, sometimes this happens naturally but not as often as I believe it happens when birds are called in and are frantically defending their territory. And nest shots are so upsetting. There have been more back and forth comments this week on facebook about taking images of nests. They are such easy shots to take as the birds are almost captive, but disturbing birds at this time can result in the nest being abandoned or predated. It makes me sad that such shots get so many likes.
On a happier note I adore the graceful curves of swans. As I was photographing this bird I watched for those curves as it twisted and turned while preening.
Black Swan (Cygnus atratus)
1/1250, f/13, ISO 1600
Their long necks enable them to tweak even those hard-to-reach places. As I’m writing I’m thinking about their colouring, red, black and white which reminded me of a joke from primary school that asks what are those three colours and the answer is ‘a newspaper’. I’m digressing, I do that when I’m tired. Back to swans.
Black Swan (Cygnus atratus)
1/1000, f/13, ISO 1600
Shivers of loveliness! In the image above I really like the curve of the swan’s neck and the way its head is nestled amongst its feathers.
Black Swans mate for life and raise one set of cygnets each year. They are opportunistic breeders and many are taking advantage of current conditions in areas that have had adequate rain. They need a remarkable 40m of open water to enable them to take off. I’m wondering if I’m the only one who thinks the water looks like old, rusting, corrugated iron.
I’ve made a few changes to lirralirra over the past week, including adding four new banner images and keeping four of the previous shots. Each time you open lirralirra, or refresh, a banner image is randomly chosen so there’s now a 50% chance that you’ll see a new banner image when you click on the page. I’ve changed the font and font colour which will hopefully be positive move.
It’s late and my dogs are ready for some supper, and so am I.
Happy birding to you all
Kim
PS If you’d like to see more ethical bird images there’s a facebook page called Ethical Bird Photography that might be of interest
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