Spotless, White-browed Crakes share spoils with few tiffs

Spotless Crake finally finding mud footing firm enough to venture forth with longer-toed White-browed Crakes in front of Tyto hide these drying days.

Didn't hear or see the species for more than two months and began to wonder if some or all had done an overnight bunk. Perhaps numbers of sightings have been unusually low for a combination of reasons: strange Wet season, low breeding output, some departures.

Feeding birds ignored me over the weekend as I crawled close. Even when aching back forced me to sit up the birds stayed close across narrow channel. Added 1.4x to 600mm lens and did some shooting in raw+jpeg. For those interested, first image is jpeg with one light sharpening. Second, same image with second sharpening. Third image, raw converted to tiff, one sharpening. File size increased by about 4.5x raw over jpeg (6mb to 26mb) and another 3x tiff over raw (26mb to 72mb). Good luck trying to spot anything like such differences in images prepared for the blog. But it can matter to printers and the pros.

Another view, just for luck.

And here's the feeding partner. Mostly the two shared without tiffs.

White-browed Crake stepping out

Weed mat in front of Tyto hide starting to offer footing and  feeding White-browed Crake (Amaurornis cinerea) finds just right. 

Birds look right at home in the scleria too. Spotless Crake today also out briefly, but too quick for the  camera. Tomorrow ...