Splendid Fairywrens – Blue Wrens in Bedfordale.
It’s been a busy time for me photography wise lately. In the last two days I’ve had six shoots. Despite being out of the house from 8am-1am yesterday I still dragged myself out of bed this morning (when the clock started with a 5 – what the…) for a fun shoot that was just me messing around and having fun with a camera.
I have never attempted bird photography before. There is a reason I love portrait photography, you can give direction and tell people how to adjust their position. Bird photography relies way to heavily on the will of the bird! Even in the volunteer work I do with rescues we can almost always guarantee we will be able to find the rescue animal. No such guarantee with birds. You have to go and hope for the best.
The Bird Whisperer
Still the Splendid Fairywrens will only be blue for a little while longer and seeing them in person is on my bucket list. Photographing them would be nice but I didn’t hold out much hope. Luckily Kelly from 7 to 1 Photography had insider knowledge, she had met Mark the Bird Whisperer who has spent 5 years getting to know the birds and when he arrives to photograph them they all flock down to see him.
A rocky start
The day did not start well. Kelly and I are both volunteers with an organisation called Shutter Paws. It is a group of amazing people around WA who volunteer their time to photograph rescue animals. We are bound not only by our desire to help animals, but also by our really odd sense of humour. One member, Kaylene, has been joking that she has a business idea. After a couple of failed attempts at bird photography she is thinking about offering bird photography tours where you are guaranteed not to see a single bird. We were joking about this being one of those outings when there was an issue with the memory card for Kelly’s camera. It looked like our trip would be cut more than a little short. Luckily that hurdle was over come and we cracked on.
The next issue was that Mark the Bird Whisperer wasn’t there and it seemed like the birds knew it and they decided to have a sleep in. It looked like Kaylene’s version of a bird tour may actually be on the cards. It was a beautiful morning and we could hear the birds which was lovely. It just would have been more lovely to SEE the birds!
Bird expert I am not!
Then, they woke up! I wont pretend to know what birds are what. I know the blue wren is the Splendid Fairywren, and I think we saw a White Robin and there were Redwings as well. I don’t think I will be called on in a birding round of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire if any of my friends need to phone a friend. What ever they were, they were there and they were much closer than I thought they would be! They were so cute and all had such character.
As we were about to leave, Mark the Bird Whisperer did turn up and was very kind and chatted to us before he started chatting to the birds. It was awesome to see. These birds all flocked to him, they know him and he knows them. They all have names, there is Old Blue – an old Spendid Fairywren, The Accountant – a Redwing, JR is one of Old Blue’s babies but he isn’t a baby anymore.
Getting up with the birds can have it’s advantages. You get to see the birds!
It was a really lovely morning and despite going out thinking I wouldn’t get anything that was worth keeping, I got a couple of nice photos that I’m happy with as a first attempt!
