ML254447331
Contributor
Date
Location
- Age
- Not specified
- Sex
- Not specified
Observation details
I'd just set off to try spotlighting frogs along the waterfront, lost in the dreaminess of the night, when RIGHT NEARBY, so close I could feel it, the MOREPORKS fired up together!!! I set off in hot pursuit, slipping right through the Firetail Thicket, wondering for a moment if I'd alarmed the Owls no matter how quietly I was moving... but there!! More calls!! As I emerged into the open, the two Owls were making the most incredible noise; their eponymous cries were coming so quickly that it sounded like a chorus of huge Frogs croaking away in the treetops!! I scanned the enormous boughs of those huge old gums... and THERE THEY WERE!!! Out in the open, side by side, were the two perfect Moreporks, craning out their necks!! One of them immediately leapt away into the night, and I cursed my luck, feeling sure I'd lost them both... but the other one sat there, eyeing me over its shoulder, before fluttering on rounded wings a little way up the hill... a closer tree! A MUCH closer tree!! What followed was one of the most enchanting little photoshoots in my entire life of tracking down birds; the Morepork, which glowed with a silvery straw colour no photo can ever quite capture, was peering down and me from its little ball of fluff, its neck stretching in and out to a quite remarkable length, and it constantly wobbled from side to side as it examined me. There was absolutely no fear in those dark-golden eyes; no. This bird was just pleasantly bewildered as to what I might be!! And it only got more intrigued when I had a go at pishing it in!!! I never knew that pishing was so effective on Owls; the Morepork fluttered low over my head, its rounded dappled wings absolutely silent, and perched on a branch RIGHT ABOVE ME, waddling closer, every bit as amazed as I was!! Eventually it flew across to another photogenic perch, where the nasal croaks of a Ringtail in the same tree left it torn as to what was more intriguing out of me or the Possum; that's where I decided to leave it in peace, and so I blew it a kiss and melted into the night, leaving both me and the little bundle of an Owl with enough stories to tell for a lifetime...
Technical information
- Model
- COOLPIX P610
- ISO
- 1600
- Focal length
- 179.2 mm
- Flash
- Flash fired, auto
- f-stop
- f/5.6
- Shutter speed
- 1/125 sec
- Dimensions
- 1600 pixels x 1200 pixels
- Original file size
- 1.37 MB