My wife and I are birders of sorts. She has photographed over 500 species in US, Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, and Costa Rica. We are curious if this is a popular past time in Australia. Attached is Elaine with a tame Harris Hawk at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Area
Birding is fairly big in the US. There seem to be several levels
Bird watching: Looking at backyard birds with binos from KMart and photos from IPhone
Birding: Taking trips around home area to look at birds and taking hikes to watch them when on travel: Binos are cameras are a step or two up
Listing: Taking special trips to see that life list bird that is in Florida, Texas or Arizona. Any Category V bird will mean an airline ticket (Category V means it has not been seen anywhere in US in years): binos are now Swarovski, Leica or Zeiss and the Nikon/Canon lenses are now grey (most expensive and up to 700 mm
Twitching - either a Limie Lister or a US/Canadian Lister than is beyond professional help.
There are a lot of regions in Austrlian that have very different birds and should love to see them someday. We were in Ruinas Copan, Honduras (major Mayan achraeological site and excellent bird watching on 12 week trip in Guatemala/Honduras - we flew down) and talked with a guy who decided that he would see all 13 species of Penguin and did over a number of years (South Africa, Falklands, Antarctica, Galapagos, Chile, Argentina, New Zealand and I believe Australia). If I had time, money and ability I would go for all 400 species of hummer.
Yes Birding is quite popular here both Photographywise as well as an interest with Bird watchers :), was in Canada Alaska last year Holidaying and biggest mistake made was i didnt take my Birding lens with me to capture decent pics of Bald Eagles close by and that would have completed my Holiday just fine as well as a tick off the Bucketlist:)..
September they tell me is the Time the Bald eagles gather in Alaska for the Salmon Runs which attract Photgraphers by the numbers ey??..
Cheers
We traveled to Alaska six years ago and were camped at Anchor Point near Homer. There were perhaps a hundred Bald Eagles. Elaine had never seen one close and took some great photos (she finally got a good Nikon with lenses sent to relatives in Homer from B&H and was in seventh heaven). After four days of Eagles, she was getting a bit blase. We passed a young couple on the beach and the wife was ecstatic about the number and closeness of the Eagles (they pretty much ignored you if you were more than 20 metres from them). Elaine said to me "Newbies!"
Have these fellas that i coax with undersized fish i catch to draw them in close for a snap but hopefully along my travels here soon i willbe fortunate enough to Photgraph some of those big ones you mentioned :), and yes have come across plenty of them in my younger years but as usual once one buys a Camera they kinda shy away... Except for these local Birds:)..
Apparently all Ospreys are the same species. That bird's beak looks a lot more like an Eagle. You have a fish-eating eagle called a White-bellied Eagle. Great photo
Reed
Reed, if you want to see more photographed birds of Australia there are a couple of sites on Facebook, Birds of Oz and Bird Photography Australia.
Both have a good range of birds and photographers.
