Birds along the river Murray

[Grumpy John]

Some of the birds I photographed while doing a 5 day riverboat cruise along the Murray River in South Australia.

#1 Black Kite, or Whistling Kite, I'm never sure with these two. Identification from the experts would be appreciated. Not the best IQ, but better than my usual BIF images.


#2 Little Corella. My usual BIF quality


#3 3 Little black cormorants all in a row.


#4 Sulphur Crested Cockatoo.

#5 Australasian Darter.

[Ozzie_Traveller]

G'day GJ

A beaut collection of images ... and your #2 (claimed quality) is much the same as mine .... so we're both still got a lot to learn and catch up with the experts here
I do like all of them really ... a 'well done' from me

Phil

[Grumpy John]

Thanks for the kind words Phil. These old hands are pretty shaky these days and when you bolt a 600mm lens on a 1.6 crop sensor body you end up with a 960mm lens. Not easy to hand hold at the best of times.

[wigz]

They look pretty good to me John, although the small size on the forum hides a lot of problems. Is your Sigma the sport version because it is quite heavy. I used to use the 120~300 2.8 which was a similar weight (around 3kg without the camera) so I understand the difficulty. I tried a gimbal head on the tripod but couldn’t manoeuvre it well enough for BIF.

[Grumpy John]

I couldn't justify the extra $1000 for the sport model, so I settled for the "C" class. All up body and lens it weighs in at 3.115Kg. I do have a DIY monopod, but that doesn't always make things easier.

[avkomp]

I think overall handheld is best for BIF but with big lenses not so easy. I use the full wimberley head for a lot of my flight stuff. you need to practice though. I used to go work on seagulls or something repeatable. also a spot where cormorants would do laps, you get the hang of it. need a bit of a tuneup cos I not done to much recently

[avkomp]

top bird appears to be whistling kite. blacks show a forked tail in flight but sometimes the tail is spread wide and looks flat. whistling kite tails generally longer and more rounded

[Grumpy John]

Thanks for that Stephen.

[avkomp]

you set yourself a tough gig shooting in harsh light but did ok.
darter is my pick of these

[Grumpy John]

When you're on a holiday river cruise you don't have the luxury of asking the captain to go back when the light improves.
The darter is my favourite too.

[dolina]

#4 is my pick.