Point Cook

Friday 16th March, 2018

This one is for a patient from ED tonight who I had a great chat with about photography. No I wasn’t neglecting my work, there weren’t that many other patients to see at that point, and it’s my hobby…always happy to chat about it!

I learnt a lot! About camera clubs at a local, state, national and international level including one that I might go along to locally, we talked about his 3 dark rooms, I heard about UV and infrared photography, and we talked camera models, good lenses for bird photography…and we could have gone on!! But eventually work has to come to the fore.

Anyway, since I shared my blog but haven’t put up a lot of my photos later, I guess I better. These are some shots that I liked from an outing with Birdlife Australia, Melbourne branch to Point Cook on Wednesday. A great walk, perfect bushwalking weather, nice company and a few stunning and semi-co-operative birds! It all makes for a great day out. The day was a bit misty/smoggy so as I cropped all the photos they became a bit murky; apologies!

Brown Falcon, better not shooting into the light! 

I got a whole series of shots of this gorgeous creature because you never know how close you’ll be able to get, but this was a youngish bird so we got very close in the end, slowly step by step. So the blurry shot isn’t really excusable, but unfortunately these days I have a degree of hand shaking that is bugging me – I really need to learn to wind up my shutter speed beyond what I’ve done in the past. I have cropped this shot.

Brown Falcon, same bird but shot into the glary sky

The conditions of the day make a huge difference as far as the photos you can achieve.

The glare of the sky adds so much light into the camera that it can be hard to make out detail of the subject when you shoot into the light and it is backlit; this is where being able to use your settings well really comes into play…or you just accept that you are operating in impossible conditions…but what fun would that be??

A Crested Tern on the wing

Love Terns, they are so acrobatic in the air and a delight to photograph!

Now THIS is a series I’m super proud of!! Just saying…a little stoush

Now THAT’S the type of shot I want to be taking!

Whistling Kite, not a great shot but the best I got

Perfect! Do you know how close I had to get to this Superb Fairywren for this shot? Actually I had to wait for it to get this close to me. Time and patience pays off! About 2 metres away

This scrappy looking guy is a male Superb Fairywren in eclipse, halfway moulting between immature and full male adult plumage in the non breeding season – this means he’s less than 5 years old

I was sitting at lunch and all the birds took off in a big Kuffluffle behind me! It’s a tell tale sign of a bird of prey flying over; there’s a consensus amongst all the birds that this is a bad thing. 4 magpies suddenly went into attack mode and I discovered exactly where the bird of prey was! Not in focus but a nice action shot, I didn’t have much time to get off a shot

Again, poor focus but I’m proud of this shot because I was the only one in a group of 20 that got a shot, and so I contributed a Brown Goshawk to the day’s count – I’m happy with that!!

Spot the Little Wattlebird!

Not perfect but a Black Kite right above my head?? Wow!

And 2 Black Kites up there?? Perfection!

This was my other moment of contribution – an immature Australasian Gannet, in the bay, out of the colony, away from Geelong, all on its own! I picked it out, someone else labelled it, lots of excitement all around! Love the spotty plumage – the adult is very monochrome

Silver gulls (usually called Seagulls), Crested Terns, Chestnut Teal ducks, Little Pied Cormorant – these are all roosting in shallow water in the bay

Little Pied Cormorants and Pied Cormorants – you can see the size difference clearly

Well, there’s some recent photos. I was overall a bit disappointed with the quality which was partly due to the weather with the glare and the smog, partly due to the settings being poorly managed and somewhat to do with this shake. Maybe I need to make a tripod part of my regular outfit for camera stability, maybe I need to go back to photography school to refresh the basics of which settings to use when, and let’s see what the doctor says about my tremor!

Enjoy!!

Cycling update

Recently I shared with you my love of social cycling, and all the hard work that goes into it, and fun that comes out of it. I had ridden an epic (for me) number of 7 rides in 2 weeks with Wheel Women last time I was talking to you, but where to from there? When you hit a personal best, whatever follows can feel a bit mediocre.

So here’s a little update on my riding. After that two week period, I rode 2 rides the next week, one the week following and one ride the week after that. Since then I haven’t ridden much. Oddly this has coincided with unofficially and then officially starting work. I’ve either been working on the day that a ride was scheduled, recovering from work the day a ride was scheduled or the weather hasn’t been that great. It sounds a lot less impressive, doing less rides, but each ride was significant in its own right.

One ride was at sunset along St Kilda esplanade which was stunning!

We had to change route without warning when 40 joggers turned onto the path in front of us (seriously forty!!), and I loved finding our way through the quaint Port Melbourne suburban streets until we got to the beach. We stopped for the fish and chip special up past the yachts, then rode back in the dark with lights. I hadn’t ridden with lights at night before, and I really wanted to try that with others before attempting it on my own, and yay, I ticked that off the list. I have to say whizzing along in the dark on a balmy night along the beach then into the city was pretty thrilling!

Then I voluntarily signed up to do a big long hill climb lesson one Saturday, figuring that after the very hilly Torquay circuit that I survived, I should strike while the iron was hot and keep working on my hill climbing skills! What’s the saying, sucker for punishment? Or something like that. There was a large group of us and I think that we each learnt something different, relative to our own ability and the experience of climbing that hill. Most of all, we had a go. Having a chance to try something is such a big part of Wheel Women. I wouldn’t think of doing a 8km hill with an average 5% gradient by myself. I probably wouldn’t try it with a friend; I most definitely wouldn’t try it with my husband! He’s an amazing hill climber: lean and muscular, terrific cardiac capacity, mentally tougher and most of all 50kg lighter than me!! Yep, that’s the difference between us! But being so competent, I think his coaching wouldn’t translate as well as from someone who has been through the learning process themselves relatively recently. Maybe I’m wrong, but I like attempting it this way, with several female coaches who have gotten into riding in the last few years and recently trained as coaches. The climb was a bit torturous, and I admit I put my foot down about 7 times for a “breather” or for a sip or five of water or to let the lactic acid burn in my quads abate, but I didn’t stay stopped. I had a good friend riding alongside coaching me; she really helped change how I thought about doing the ride, and I did better because of her!

By the end I actually felt like I could go back another day and using her techniques I could get to the top by myself; but it’s more fun with friends. I was last to the top, but boy did I make up for it on the way down!! I was second by a small margin and rocketed through those curves; now that’s bike riding!!!

For the third ride we rode 40km in a loop around Geelong via the chocolaterie. I was so proud of this ride. Despite the wind we rode into at times, I felt really strong and mostly rode up in the front group going faster than my usual average speed, and the couple of hills we came up against I hit hard, and punched up them. I found it really interesting riding around the refineries, the suburbs, and the coast of Geelong; and the chocolates were delicious! I’m proud of what I’ve achieved in skills and experience on these few rides.

The last one was just for fun! A loop from Docklands to Port Melbourne around our usual spots: the apartments on the marina, the industrial zone, up to the beach for a moment of longing for a swim in better weather, a stop by the pink lake at Westgate Park and back for coffee and treats at a gorgeous little bakery opposite Etihad stadium. And then I went and drove off with my phone on the roof!! But we’ve already covered that.

Well believe it or not that was back in the middle of April!! My last ride was the exact day before I started unofficially at work, and finally today I got out there again! And it was a stunner. We started in the thick fog that has been hanging around every morning this week. And it was cold! I pulled up my riding jacket over my chin and mouth after they started to go numb, fogging up my glasses and causing condensation and I began to think that a balaclava has some merit for winter riding! And I forgot my gloves!! Argh, not great with metal brake levers. But boy was it stunning along the river with the fog. Especially when we got to the outlet of warm water from some industrial place, and watched the steam coming off the water into the foggy air; beautiful. We stopped off for a look at Stony Creek backwash and the birds in the mist, especially a graceful pure white Great Egret, REALLY made me wish that I had my camera, especially when there was a lady there with a really nice lens.

But the most stunning scene of all was when we got to the Williamstown yacht club which is always lovely, but with this morning’s fog the boats were somehow perfectly clear but behind them was nothing. Usually there’s a view across the bay to St Kilda beach and all the houses, but with all the fog it was like being at the edge of the world…just the boats and then nothing, a hidden horizon. Somehow it was so mysterious, and I was dying to photograph it!! So I did, but my phone shots are nothing on what I could have taken with my digital camera.

The reflections today with the fog and lack of wind were PERFECT! Just perfect. But then would you believe, by the time we had coffee and started cycling back it looked like this!!

No words.