Spotted Bower Bird
Not usually fond of photographing the rear aspect of a bird but on this occasion it showed the spotted plumage to its best advantage. The bird is in the centre of its bower.
Canon EOS 3, Canon 100-400mm lens, ISO 100, Natural light, 1/125 F11, Hide/Tripod
Very interesting and unusual image, John. I like the head turn--very nice.
Great framing for the unusual compo, it works out well, head turn saves the day.
Splendid bowerbird image John - DOF is excellent.
I almost always enjoy over the shoulder poses, and this one is no exception. You've kept the bower entrance nicely centered but I feel the bird itself is compositionally off balance. A tough one, if only the bird had perched more to the right of the entrance (but of course they don't really care about that do they!!) Do you have an image of it coming out with a more straight on head angle? Still a very pleasing image.
I like seeing the back and a head turn Does show the bird well Composition wise is good from my end Only wish the bird was more to the right but you have no control Very appealing and like it very much !!!
Sensational image! I really love the back view of that beautifully patterned plumage and the nice head turn made it work. So great to see the wonderful bower this bird has built, and the view of the decorative stones is excellent. Absolutely no nits from me.......Excellent!
yes you are quite correct Daniel regarding the difficulty composing images of 'Bird in bower'.Originally Posted by Daniel Cadieux
Cropping off one side of bower is one solution (as I've done here) but in this case introduces some very busy foliage.
Habitat view showing total bower with collection of ornaments - these consist mainly of vertebrae from dead sheep, stones, seed pods and even a toy plastic knife that the bird 'stole' from the nearby homestead :)
This bower was photographed a couple of years ago when I was still using film. As I changed film i threw the empty packets out the back of my hide where I had my camera bag. Unknown to me the bird wandered behid be on one occasion and took one of these packets to decorate its bower:D And yes I did send it into Koadak - although they expressed some interest never got around to use it.
The image of Bower bird and film box is not a good capture photographically - probably why it wasn't used!!
John, very cool documentation of this species. I recall viewing a wildlife documentary a few years ago that featured a similar bird, but with blue eyes (possibly another species of bower bird?). For it's nest it would gather anything blue that it could find to decorate it. The deeper the blue, the better. This included many man-made objects, such as what you have seen here. Glad you posted these images, and I really like the one of the bower...quite the architect!
John, thanks for posting more images of this bird's amazing and amusing nesting behaviors. Nice to see the front of the bird and the whole bower....and catching the bird getting ready to add the film box to his treasures made me smile.
Best regards,
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote