I'd been thinking of various decisive moments and handn't really got a good one, so I was hoping to get a bit more time in round 2.
I thought that there was a rule that you couldn't enter round 2 unless you entered in round 1. Leek told me that there wasn't, but I couldn't confirm that from threads so I thought I might as well put something in just in case!
About 6 months ago a lorikeet arrived on my windowsill and I thought it was great that the wildlife was so close to the city. A week or so later I was shopping and saw a package with giant lorikeet on it. It purported to be a mix of stuff which would attract lorikeets. So I bought some and put it on the windowsill.
A few days later i had my first customers!
As they got used to me, they let me take some more shots
But the shot I really wanted was one of them flying. I tried and tried, and found it was really hard. Firstly, the light was always wrong. Secondly, they were always in the wrong position. Thirdly, there was so much motion blur that it made most of the shots look too blurred
So I started using fill flash, which worked quite nicely. Unfortunately I only have the built-in flash, so I couldn't get too clever with it. Over the months the birds got used to me clicking away.
The problem was the particular window they came to was at a bad angle for the light. I tried to get them to come to another window but they wouldn't. Then one day as I was filling up the bowl, one landed on my arm. Aha! I thought. I can use this to move them to another window.
So then I started feeding them by hand, and got them used to the sight of a yellow bird dish. They watched it as I carried it from window to window, room to room.
Finally I could open my lounge-room window, hold out the dish and they would land! I was reasonably happy with this: the idea of the bush life surviving in the city.
But it looked too tame. I wanted to get that back-drop and a bird flying at the same time. This proved really really difficult. I mean: hundreds, if not thousands of shots in burst mode.
After plenty of trial and error, the best I could get was this, which unfortunately lost most of the background.
I kept trying to get birds in flight. My best results were in the afternoon when the window was out of the shadow and then use a bit of fill flash to freeze the motion.
With some practice, I could get plenty of shots like this, but who wants to see a bird flying away from you?
Then one day I lucked it and finally got a half-reasonable shot which showed bush life in the city.
The fill flash and motion gives it a bit of an etheral effect, which I find quite interesting.
I continue to feed the birds each day and they certainly let me know if I'm running late - they kick up quite a fuss. There are about 10 that come around now. I don't usually take photos any more because I think I've reached the limit of what I can achieve in the present location. Ideally I'd have a window which gets a lot more light and have a decent flash and diffuser. One day!
I hope you enjoyed the story and I recommend that bird mix - they love it!
