Chasing the Wattle bird

While I was working in the garden I could hear the strange "scratch" shout from the calliandra tree - a tree that has red pom-poms all over it. The Wattlebirds were busy sipping nectar from the centre of the red flowers and seemingly oblivious of the movement and busyness below them in the garden. Colin and I were busy digging out ginger plants and Clivia nobilis and not being too quiet about our efforts. To be honest, it was Colin who was digging out the plants and I was the one transplanting the Clivia to a new garden bed. The ginger had all but taken over that bit of garden and the tubers had tangled among the roots of azalea bushes and lots of other plants too. It was a "mattock" job to remove the mat of roots!
Anyway, the birds didn't mind us doing that - but as soon as I had cleaned up and re-appeared with my camera and tripod to take some photos of these visitors (they are a bit nomadic and have only just returned) they moved to the back of the tree, out of sight of me!
I went back indoors and changed into something drab - a brown jacket - and for a while had more success. I suspect that the bright sunlight glistening on my camera along with the loud shutter sound alerted them to the fact that they were on candid camera! Here are four of my better shots of today.

f number varies       all shots 1/640  ISO 400  300mm

As you can see, the first three photos were taken of the same bird on the same flower. Its just as well I took a few shots because these were the only two locations where I was able to take clear pictures of the Little Wattle Bird.
Today I set the shutter speed, not the aperture. I also increased the ISO to 400 to allow in plenty of light. Using the Shutter speed lets the camera determine the correct aperture. I needed enough depth of field to include the head and body of the bird, I did not mind if the leaves were not so sharp. I set the shutter speed to 640 to freeze any movement either from the bird flapping its wings or from the breeze moving the leaves. To be sure that I captured sharp images of the bird - I was using a long lens (70 - 300mm) at the maximum reach - I knew I could not hold the camera still enough so used a tripod. I did try one shot, hand held of one of the flowers and I could see the red ball bouncing around in the viewfinder! Hand-holding a camera that is using a long zoom is not a good idea - even if it is a point and shoot with a big zoom. Find something to rest the camera on - if you do not have a tripod handy.
AJ