Forster - New South Wales, Australia

Main Beach - Forster, Australia

The 26th of January is Australia Day, one of a handful of public holidays over here in Australia. Since it fell on a Thursday this year, we took Friday off and headed up to Forster for the long weekend.  We stayed at one of our friends apartments which is just a block away form Main Beach.

More photographs inside.

Forster - Tuncurry Bridge across Wallis Lake - Forster, Australia

Forster and its twin town Tuncurry, lie on a thin strip of land between Wallis lake and the Pacific Ocean. Forster and Tuncurry are home to a population of around 18,500 people, more than half of who are aged over 55 years. Forster is located in the great lakes area which is roughly 300 km north of Sydney, an easy 3 hour drive.

The Marina - Forster, Australia

The Forster marina is the first part of town that you see on the right hand side of the bridge when you drive in from Tuncurry. The breakwater is open to the public and a paved walkway provides easy access from the public car park. Dolphins can be seen around the breakwater on a regular basis.

The Pelicans - Forster, Australia

The Marina is also known for the flock of relatively large Pelicans that are often seen there. Facilities are provided for fishermen to clean their catch at the Marina and the birds gather around the cleaning tables hoping to feed on the scraps. They are quite used to people and gather by the table whenever someone is cleaning their fish.

Ocean Baths - Forster, Australia

As with most coastal towns in Australia, Forster also has Ocean Baths. The baths are located at the southern end of main Beach and are open to the public. The baths can be tricky to photograph as the rising sun will be directly in the background in most compositions. The best times to photograph the pools would be late evening or early morning before the sun rises. A Tripod is essential.

Ocean Baths - Forster, Australia

I made several early morning starts and managed to shoot the pool in varying light conditions. These two photographs are the ones I liked best of the lot. I tried using a graduated ND filter to compress the dynamic range of the photographs but it was tricky due to the compositions that I chose.

Tuncurry across Wallis Lake - Forster, Australia

All the images on this post were taken with the Canon 7D and the 24-105mm lens. A graduated ND filter was used for some of the photographs and a tripod came in handy on many occasions.

13 Graffiti Cartoon Characters

Graffiti Cartoon Characters

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Garden Orb Weaver Spider- Sydney, Australia

Garden Orb-weaver Spider (Eriophora transmarina) - Sydney, Australia

I took the macro lens out over the weekend hoping to photograph some spiders in the garden. I found a number of Garden Orb Weavers in the shrubs along the driveway and spent some time photographing them. The fact that they spend a lot of time under their webs made the whole task a lot harder.

More photographs inside.

 Garden Orb-weaver Spider (Eriophora transmarina) - Sydney, Australia

Garden Orb-weavers are common, non venomous spiders found in Australia. They are usually brightly coloured and vary in terms of size, shape and colour within Australia. They are nocturnal feeders and weave their webs in the evenings. One of the spiders I saw over the weekend was actually in the process of weaving its web. It was interesting to actually see how the spider set about creating such an intricate web.

Garden Orb-weaver Spider (Eriophora transmarina) - Sydney, Australia

I had been trying to figure out how spiders actually sets about creating a web across a void when I came found an article which actually described the process. Apparently the spiders use air/wind to spread the initial line across a void. The spider is said to move to a vantage point and raise its abdomen and release a steady stream of silk from it's spinnerets. The wind will then pick up the silk and carry it until it snags on a solid object. Once the initial strand is firmly snagged, the spider will move out along it to build the web.

Garden Orb-weaver Spider (Eriophora transmarina) - Sydney, Australia

Interestingly the Orb-Weavers build a web every night and then remove it at dawn, unlike some other spiders who stay in the web day and night. Apparently the reason for this behaviour is predator avoidance. Although the "orb" section of the web disappears, some of the support lines will be left in place. During the day the spiders "hide" near a location where these support lines meet a solid object.

Garden Orb-weaver Spider (Eriophora transmarina) - Sydney, Australia

These photographs were taken with the Canon 7D and the 100mm macro lens. The lighting was again from a Canon 430EX II fired at 1/8th from high (relatively) camera left. Like with the photograph of the Weaver Ants the strobe was handheld. It's not the easiest thing to do when you are trying to lock focus using a macro lens!

Leopards - Wilpattu, Sri Lanka

Leopard - Wilpattu, Sri Lanka

On our last trip to Sri Lanka we were able to visit Wipattu while we were staying in Anuradhapura. Due to time constraints we were able to do just one drive in the park. However, we were quite lucky as we atually managed to see 3 Leopards in the park.

More photographs after the jump.

 Leopard - Wilpattu, Sri Lanka

The first sighting was just five minutes after we entered the park. We had just picked up the tracker from the office and headed into the park when we saw the first Leopard just off the road. We had actually driven past him before we realised and had to reverse back to where he was. He wasn't too bothered with us and was happy to sit in the shade and be photographed. We had been there for about five minutes when a tractor approached and spooked the Leopard.

Leopard - Wilpattu, Sri Lanka

The second sighting was a mother and a cub who were playing on the road when we saw them. Unfortunately they were some distance away and we had to be cautious when we approached. Our driver wasn't very experienced and he stopped a relatively long way from the Leopards making photography almost impossible. By the time we were close enough to the Leopards to photograph them, the cub had moved away.

Leopard - Wilpattu, Sri Lanka

A few minutes later the mother moved off to the right hand side of the road. The cub saw her move and followed her. It was still in a playful mood and I was fortunate to photograph it running across the road and jumping on its mothers back. The two moved into the undergrowth and were there for sometime before they disappeared into the jungle.

Leopard - Wilpattu, Sri Lanka

The photograph above is of the mother when she was about 10 meters away.

All the photographs on this post were taken with a Canon 7D and the 100-400mm lens.

Cool Graffiti Design On Truck Vans Ideas

Graffiti Design On Truck

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Emerald Dove - Sri Lanka

Emerald Dove (Chalcophaps indica) - Sinharaja, Sri Lanka

Of all the pigeons found in Sri Lanka, the Emerald Dove is easily the most striking. It's brilliant green wings and red beak and feet make identification easy. It's a shy bird and as a result, although common,  is rarely seen. On my last trip to Sri Lanka I photographed this species in Sinharaja as well as in Wilpattu.

More photographs inside.

 Emerald Dove (Chalcophaps indica) - Wilpattu, Sri Lanka

The sighting in Sinharaja was the best in terms of photography. We had just walked in through the gate and around the first corner of the main road when we saw a male Emerald Dove (males have a white patch on their shoulder) walking towards us. I was expecting it to stop briefly and then disappear into the undergrowth on the side of the road but fortunately this was not the case. The bird just walked straight at us and I was able to fire off a number of frames as it approached. It continued until it was well beyond where we were standing before it took flight.

Emerald Dove (Chalcophaps indica) - Sinharaja, Sri Lanka

I was also surprised to see a number of them in Wilpattu. They were foraging along the edge of almost every road we drove on and took flight as the vehicle approached. They were probably on the road as they are not used to vehicles driving in the park (the park had been closed to visitors for years and opened up very recently). Most of them flew into the forest and disappeared into the undergrowth pretty quickly. One of them flew up and perched on a branch by the side of the road and allowed me to take the second shot on this post.

 

 Emerald Dove (Chalcophaps indica) - Sinharaja, Sri Lanka

Both Wilpattu and Sinharaja are have a thick canopy and very little direct sunlight gets through. As a result, to get decent photographs of these birds I had to jack up the ISO. In Sinharaja I had to use an ISO of about 2000. All photographs on this post were taken with the Canon 7D and the 100-400mm lens.