There is nothing like messing about with Google Earth and discovering interesting geographical features around the globe. Imagine my surprise when I was googling the Buckeye area and found a small pond - very close to where I go birding, then panning out slightly I saw a huge lake about a mile further east that is owned by a local mining company. Knowing that I would be in trouble if I was found trespassing in the quarry I decided that I could safely explore the smaller pond. So I left the house shortly after sunrise and headed off. The pond was not quite the bird extravaganza I was expecting - small and smelly, and almost impossible to reach because of a wall of 8 foot tall reeds. I had made so much noise in my effort to get to the bank of the pond that anything that was not totally deaf had long departed. It was a little like forging a path through virgin rainforest and I was expecting to meet up with Sid James (Carry On up the Jungle) or Harrison Ford running away from a tribe of pigmy head hunters! Anyway, I gave it up as a bad job and left the area. Not wanting to head back home I took a stroll down towards the quarry and kept to the bushes so that I would not be seen. The bird life was incredible! Egrets, cranes, herons and ducks were all there! Unfortunately I was approaching the lake from the west - which meant I was facing the sun, which is no good for the type of photography I wanted. So, I turned around and made my way back to the car... however, to my benefit I took the wrong fork in a path and stumbled across a stream. I was fairly certain that I knew where the stream led - because I had parked my care at the other end of it! I thought it was a small irrigation canal, so had never thought of investigating it before - now I could follow it straight back to the car. It was one of the best birding experiences I have had - and definately one I will repeat again, although next time I will take a tripod instead of a monopod, and I will utilise some of the tracking techniques that Arthur Morris describes in "The Art of Bird Photography" - a book that has not been more than a few feet from me whatever I have been doing in the last few weeks.
Anyway, enough of the waffle... here are the shots:
House Sparrow.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
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