I’m so slack, it’s been three months since I posted anything here but once you get though what’s been going on in my life I’m sure you’ll understand..

Twitchin’ – BirdingOz ran the inaugural Australia-wide ‘PhotoTwitch’ on Sunday November the 8th. In short the challenge was to photograph as many species of birds as possible in an 8 hour window. This was a great event and I’m sure it will only get better (and bigger) with age. The totals are still being counted with some amazing numbers being recorded by some of the members.

I limited myself to my ‘local patch’ being the upper Blue Mountains and the weather was miserable! After waiting in the car for about 2 hours for the rain to stop I managed to get a total of 36 species (in about 5 hours) some of these came as a shock and others I expected to find without a problem I missed all together including: King Parrot, Yellow-tailed Black-Cockatoo, Kestrel, Feral Pigeon and even a Pardalote.

My list: Little Black Cormorant, Pacific Black Duck, Australian Wood Duck, Dusky Moorhen, Australian White Ibis, Masked Lapwing, Crested Pigeon, Gang-Gang, Galah, Sulphur Crested Cockatoo, Crimson Rosella, Eastern Rosella, Sacred Kingfisher, Dollarbird, Superb Fairy-wren, Brown Thornbill, Yellow-rumped Thornbill, Red Wattlebird, Eastern Spinebill, New Holland Honeyeater, Eastern Whipbird, Golden Whistler, Grey Shrike-thrush, Grey Fantail, Willie Wagtail, Olive-backed Oriole, Satin Bowerbird, Australian Magpie, Pied Currawong, Welcome Swallow, Rufous Songlark, House Sparrow, Red-browed Finch, Beautiful Firetail, Silvereye and lastly Common Myna.

I was pretty happy with this result for a relatively small area and very poor weather.

Wedding! That’s right, On Sunday 18th October I married the love of my life after almost 12 years together.. LOL! We had the ceremony and reception in the Blue Mountains at The Carrington Hotel (Katoomba). It all went as planned and I’ve got to admit it’s right up there as one of the best nights I’ve had. For those of you that haven’t already seen, be sure to take a look at my darling wife’s photo blog – www.melissamiller.info

FOR SALE - I’ve decided to sell my 50D along with the BG-E2N grip and a 4Gb ultra 3 CF card as I’m contemplating a pro body.. Mmmm 1D Mk4?!? For anyone interested I’m asking $1500 for the lot plus any delivery costs. This body is in perfect as new condition with 8 months left on the original 12 month warranty.

New Look – By the time you read this you would (I HOPE) have noticed I’ve re-vamped the look of the site, mostly just tried to add some colour to the last grey/drab theme. I’ve also taken the time to rebuild my entire image gallery so please take a minute to have a look through. I’d love to hear what you all think of the new look/layout/gallery.

That’s about all I have time for right now though this time I promise to be back sooner.

Craig.

After having the worst weather for what seems like the last three months today I got up at 6am and headed down into the Megalong Valley. Leaving home the sky was patchy but it looked like it might turn out OK. It was nice to dream! As soon as I turned off the highway heading into the valley the weather closed in!

I made my way into Megalong and parked at the entrance to the Six Foot track, dragged all my gear out of the car and headed East along the track where I was greeted by a curios Scarlet Robin I didn’t even lift the camera as I was looking into the light and it was pretty well still dark. Continuing along the track East there were quite a few Buff-rumped Thornbill as well as White-eared Honeyeater, Grey Fantail and one Grey Currawong. I spent some time trying for a photograph of a few but the conditions made life very difficult. Heading back to the road and over the cattle grid heading West I was quite surprised to see very few birds today. A pair of Laughing Kookaburra and a few more Honeyeaters.

With this I made my way back to the car and took a casual drive round the valley, along Peach Tree road all the way to the end and then back and along Five Mile Creek RD and finally making my way home. It’s a stunning place to visit even when the birding’s not so great.

Till next time
Craig.

After being stuck inside almost the whole week with pouring rain and just all round miserable weather I spotted a glimpse of sunlight though the clouds this afternoon so I grabbed my camera and was on my way. Seeing the weather had been so horrid I wasn’t to keen on heading too far from home in case the heavens opened up again (chances were high) so Kings Tablelands it was seeing it’s about a 5 minute drive from home.

Beautiful Firetail

I’ve been trying for some time now to get myself a good photograph of Beautiful Firetail (Stagonopleura bella) and a good friend of mine let me in on a very good location for them not so long ago. I’ve been there a few times but always found myself interrupted by something be it traffic, people or people walking their dogs (off the lead arrggg) so today’s bad weather gave me some peace and quiet to get ‘the’ shot!

Not long after getting setup in the wet heath my little friends arrived and to my surprise they were quite happy to sit right on the edge of the heath in plain view for me, so I happily snapped away form my natual hide. After a few minutes they were on their way and I could hear Gang Gangs calling form the other side of the valley but their a whole nother story.

I have attached a photo of my Beautiful friend and more can be found in my gallery.

That’s about all I have for now though in the next few days I have some news that I just can’t write about tonight so stay tuned!

Craig.