Tawny Frogmouths

[Ironwood]

I disturbed a nest of Tawny's by accident when I was doing some repairs on my driveway yesterday. It seems they had a burrow under a large rock beside the driveway, about 6 or 8 took off, a couple not too far. I went back to the house and grabbed the camera off the verandah, it had the 105 macro lens on, I thought it would be OK because I could get pretty close to one of the young ones that was in a tree beside the driveway...
As it turned out, it wasn't up to the task, it had trouble focusing in the lowlight( seemed to be front-focussing), but I got these 3 shots, while not great they will have to do.

[Ironwood]

I went back to the house and swapped the lens for the Tamron 150-600, and took the tripod.

The Young one was gone, but I spotted a Parent not too far away....

[seaslug]

Lovely shots. What a character!

[Ironwood]

Cheers Greg. I am happy to get the shots, but sad that I scared them out of their nest. I checked this afternoon, they were nowhere to be seen. I hope they are OK.

[loose cannon]

That's a good series Brad, I'd be happy with those.

[Ironwood]

Thanks Mick. I got about 100 shots all up, after a quick scan, these are the ones that caught my eye.
When I have a spare hour or so, I will have a better look at them and cull the ones that don't cut it.

[Alan]

Great shots esp in the second attempt.

I hope they are ok too

[Ironwood]

Thanks Alan.
Yes, I had higher hopes when I was using the 105 f2.8 Nikon, I thought it would have done better in the conditions. Luckily the big Tamron saved the day.

I had another look along the driveway again yesterday afternoon, still no sight of them. Because they all took off without any trouble, I am hoping the young ones are developed enough to cope. There is plenty of bush structure around here for them to hide.

[avkomp]

good series of these guys. always full of character. well done.
nest photography opens a can of worms. just cos can photograph them with the 105 doesnt mean you should. the longer lens may have got the shot with no alarm.
I personally wont take a shot of a nest unless I do it outside the danger zone. couldnt really photograph this years tawnys near here cos stuff was in the way. the only way would have been a ladder or something. so left em be. tawnys pretty laid back out of the nest though so probably using the 105 causes no alarm.

[Ironwood]

good series of these guys. always full of character. well done.

Thanks Stephan. Yes such a variety of expressions, I have another dozen or so shots I could post, each has a different look of expression on its face.

nest photography opens a can of worms. just cos can photograph them with the 105 doesnt mean you should. the longer lens may have got the shot with no alarm.
I personally wont take a shot of a nest unless I do it outside the danger zone. couldnt really photograph this years tawnys near here cos stuff was in the way. the only way would have been a ladder or something. so left em be. tawnys pretty laid back out of the nest though so probably using the 105 causes no alarm.

Not sure if you have misunderstood my first post or not, but I would like to clarify things here.

On the day, I was working on my 150 meter long driveway, using a shovel to help improve the drainage along the sides of the road, as some heavy rain had caused some erosion.
I had absolutely no knowledge of the nest that was under a lounge chair sized rock situated one meter off to the side of the road ( the burrow under the rock was facing away from the road ).
The sounds I was making, shovelling gravel and rocks about 2 meters from the nest, was enough to make them take flight, some disappeared from sight, while a couple landed in trees not far from the road. The young one in the first couple of photos was about 4 meters from the edge of the road. I grabbed my camera off the verandah 50 meters away ( it happened to have the 105 lens on it , because I was taking some photos of some spiders earlier) I stood on the road and took those photos ( about 5 meters from the bird, the photos are cropped ), the ground drops off steeply on that side of the road, so the bird was at about the same level as me. The lens had trouble focussing on the bird, low light, sticks and leaves in the way. So I went back to the house and swapped lenses and got the tripod at the same time. The 2nd bird was about 8 meters off the side of the road.

If I had of been aware that the nest was there, I wouldn't have gone so close to it in the first place, and certainly wouldn't have approached it from that direction if I had intended to take photos.
And as far as I am concerned, the damage had been done well before I got the camera.

Here is an uncropped image with the 105mm lens.

Nikon D7100, Nikon 105 G macro, f4.5, 1/400th, iso3200

[avkomp]

yeah misread the bit about by accident. all good