Friday, February 6, 2009

Sick of flood, back to birds

Ingham still cut off. Town cleanup awaits another metre drop in Herbert River. But at caravan park we're better off with standing water shelving across back third of grounds. All facilities came through more or  less intact and we ripped into blast cleaning in yesterday's sunshine. More heavy rain forecast for three days should not slow river's fall.

Tyto's out of question, but it's time to get back to the birds, if only to show slightly improved processing. (Nothing like rainy days to force one to knuckle down and try more time-consuming tasks.) 


First, Brown Honeyeater (Lichmera indistincta). Bird's not bad. Too much tree, and try as I might, couldn't find way to clone the problems away.  The attractive markings are rather at odds with the bird's Latin name, aren't they?


Here's a White-gaped Honeyeater (Lichenostomus unicolor), previously unposted in this blog, but put up on Birding-Oz.  The gape seldom phtographs as true white, usually offering a strong yellow tinge. But the Latin is truer to the plumage.

Time to get back to the cleanup. More later.

7 comments:

  1. Definitely time well spent during the floods in learning some new PP techniques. Great photos and beaut birds!

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  2. That's one positive outcome from the floods!

    There is definitely a subtle beauty to that (not so) brown honeyeater. The white-gaped one looks a bit perturbed, though!

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  3. Lovely shots Tony, hope the water didn't damage the van floor.

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  4. Thanks Mick. Of course, I'm merely doing everyday work on suitable files. I have no secret formula.

    Hi Snail: Combination of mature plumage coming through on juvenile adds something, doesn't it? WG's typical pose sets up an illusion of fretting.

    We laugh at water, Duncan, and are never floored by it ;-) Luck held and only water to come in dripped off me.

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  5. Nice work, Tony, to see the blue-grey of the eyes.
    My local Lewin's HEs have similar eyes to your WG HE, but I see they are not in the same family. Close enough I believe.
    Good that you can laugh at the water.
    Obviously you would need that attitude. Best wishes.
    Denis

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  6. Hi Tony, I've been following your blog since finding it during a recent search for nature related blogs. Sorry to hear on this morning's news that Ingham is cut off again. I hope all the cleaning up in the caravan park hasn't been in vain. Daintree is sultry, some monsooonal rain as you would expect at this time of the year. The Daintree river was very high yesterday and our swamps were overfull but the level dropped overnight.
    Your photo of the Little Bronze Cuckoo reminds me of our visit to Tyto last May - we were trying to turn a Little Bronze into a Horsfield's until you gave us some instruction. The plumage is quite exquisite in the morning light - a real gem

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  7. Hi Barbara,

    Great blog you've got. Thanks for getting in touch.

    May? We're dealing with a memory biased to birds. I'm sorry to say there's just a vague recollection of our chat. But, then, I had to check notebook to recall first-ever Red-capped Robin, at end of month.

    We've fingers crossed as I post this, hoping Herbert has peaked and will start dropping near midnight. Levels here are well short of Tuesday-Wednesday and there wasn't a lot of rain through the day. Not so lucky in town, I fear.

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