A bird in the bush

Today I am going to share something very different to yesterday, I took a short road trip and enjoyed a couple of hours in the nearby rainforest so rather than give you something to learn I will give you a little story.
Last weekend much of Queensland was battered by a severe and long lasting storm that has left in its wake immeasurable damage. Damage to homes to businesses and to farms. It has also done a lot of damage to the bush. In monetary terms this is not a national worry, the bush heals. The communities in small towns divided by bush are not so lucky though, the damage to the bush created road closures, gigantic trees fell over roads, landslips and rock slides created hazards to be cleared and access to these small places was compromised.
From my home to the top of the mountain where a small township called Springbrook is situated the roads were cut in several places but amazingly by today the roads were passable. Road crews are still busy and I could see how much had already been done. Colin, my husband, and I decided to take a look at the National Park that wraps around the town of Springbrook. It is one of our favourite places.
The park has many rainforest trees which are characterised by their buttress roots - rainforest trees are shallow rooted, the moisture is filtered through the canopy of the trees and lies on the surface of the soil and in the leaf litter so the roots do not need to penetrate deep into the earth.

Sometimes it seems as if these trees can grow on solid rock, their roots wrap around boulders and stretch over the surface of rocks. They trap the leaves  for their nourishment and the leaves trap the moisture to keep the tree watered. Nature is at her busiest in a rainforest.
We could not go to the National Park without going to see at least one waterfall! The largest and easiest to walk to is named "Purlingbrook". It is a few days since the big rain so the waterfall is not running as fast as it was in the peak of the storm, however it still looks magnificent.

There is a walking track from the lookout that takes the energetic down into the valley and right under the falls, but the deluge had created several hazards - land slips - that made the track unusable so the gate access was locked. A walk to the lookout at the top of the falls was not to be either because debris had been washed down and onto the causeway/footpath and piled up against the safety railing making passage impossible.
Colin and I retreated to a picnic area where we made ourselves comfortable and were joined very quickly by a bird of the rainforest. A scrub turkey.

Not all scrub turkeys are this friendly but many learn that seated humans usually have food that they are willing to share! It is not breeding time -- or if it is, this fellow is not searching for a mate! How do I know? That wrinkly yellow bit on his neck is like a small yellow ruff. In breeding time it relaxes and droops down almost to the top of the legs. The lady turkeys must think it looks really grand!

Our Scrub turkey friend stayed until he was quite sure we didn't have another crumb of our blueberry muffins left and off he strutted to find another free meal at another table further in the park!
To be honest, I quite enjoyed his company because I could use my camera and the new off- camera flash unit I had recently acquired! The bush is quite dark under the trees even on the brightest day - in the first picture you can see that the sun is shining brightly - the bird would have been a full silhouette if I hadn't used the flash. In the second picture the bird is much closer to me and was very difficult to see (very hard to focus on something you cant see!) I held the flash lower than the camera and I was really surprised at how bright the shot came out.
I hope you enjoyed  the shots from our mornings entertainment!
AJ

A magic location

I have been busy with my video editing! On Wednesday Colin and I took Amanda, my son's girlfriend, to see one of our favourite places. Our home is at the base of Mount Springbrook so it is only a 30 km drive to see some truly magnificent scenery. Actually, we don't need to go quite that far before the "wow" factor sets in! The drive up the mountain is a delight. There are curved bridges and palm filled valleys and old stumps with holes in them that tell tales of the timber times (Cedar cutters were the first residents of this area)on the road leading up the mountain.
For most of the time I was busy with my still camera but remembered to use my tiny JVC bloggy camera once we had reached Purlingbrook Falls.
I hope you enjoy visiting one of our favourite locations! Again I remind you to click on the title on the top left of the video to see it in "widescreen" in Youtube.

If you haven't been to Springbrook yet, let me take you there!
AJ

Water - splash or smooth?

Water is a magnet when you have a camera in your hands - or I should say "it is a magnet for me!" I am not the greatest fan of water that has been photographed in such a way that it looks like something other than water. I have seen crashing seas taken with a slow shutter speed that has successfully taken the anger out of the water and rendered it into a solid seething mass of slime. To me that is unthinkable! The sea has so many moods but it is never "slimy"!
In spite of my dislike of that "look" I still cannot resist the challenge of slowing down the shutter speed and adjusting the aperture when I see fast flowing water. Just last week I took this shot.

f/ 36    0.3 sec  ISO 200     55mm  (17-55mm lens)

The water was in a little park and I had to lean over a fence to be able to take the shot. To my mind this is a shot that gives force to the water, the shutter speed has not been slow enough to smooth the water completely, there is enough splash left to give character to the water - so that it still looks like water! In the background the water running over stones has been smoothed to look more like material but that is due to the depth of field. The softer focus combined with the slow shutter has removed any splash.
By contrast I took a photograph of a pelican racing into the sea with its trophy on a fast shutter speed because I wanted the bird to be in focus and the agitated water to show the urgency of the dash.

f/ 6.3   1/320sec  ISO 200     55mm  (17-55mm lens)

Photography is all about decisions! Deciding on what is the subject, deciding on how to capture that subject to show a particular emotion or feature, deciding on whether to use shutter priority or aperture priority and so on and so on! Everyone wants something different from their images so although I may criticise what someone else has done with a photograph (I try not to!) it is more than likely that that "someone else" captured exactly what they set out to capture! I can only tell you the reasons I have taken a photo in a particular way.
AJ

Rainforest magic

Today I remembered to take my tripod with me when we packed the car for a run up the Numinbah Valley to a beautiful spot known as Natural Bridge. This is the other side of the mountain to the Purlingbrook Falls and is in the Springbrook National Park. To you international readers of my blog this will mean nothing, so I apologise for the confusion! I will make up for my blank statement by showing you why I love visiting this side of the National Park.

f/9  1/13   ISO400  26mm

This wonderful display of several different types of epiphyte (air feeding plants) is in the entrance to Natural Bridge and most people drive under it without even noticing it.
To take my photos today I had the camera in full manual control and increased the ISO to 400 at the start of my photo taking. I did not notice that I inadvertently change this back to 200 part way through the day!

f/5.6  1/5  ISO200  18mm

There are some truly beautiful sights in this piece of rainforest and after all the rain we have had during the last few weeks the creeks are running well. Thanks to the slow shutter speed the water splashes have been smoothed out but the speed of the running water is shown better this way. This part of the park is filled with draping vines of all thicknesses. Anyone with a good imagination would love to be here when there are no other people around!

f/5.6  1/15   ISO200  18mm

This photograph shows why people love to come to this park. The water that was shown in the picture before this one rushed over the surface and has cut a hole through the rock to fall ten to fifteen metres into a rock pool below creating a most spectacular sight. It is possible to walk into the cave that has been carved out over the centuries by this falling water but the spray was so great today that I stayed out in the open and tried several different vantage points. It is difficult to find the right setting to accommodate the brightness of the water and the heavy darkness of the cave and rocks - this is the sort of challenge I enjoy!

f/5.6    1/15     ISO200   18mm

Leaving the thunder of the water behind me I then walked through the rainforest to make my way back to the car and was brought to a stop by these magnificent splayed roots, rainforest trees are very shallow rooted and balance their massive size by spreading their roots out like webbed feet on tip-toe. Although my eyes were well accustomed to the lighting under the trees the camera needed plenty of time for each picture which shows just how dark it really is.

f/5.6  1/40   ISO200   26mm

My last picture tells a story of persistence - the pattern is caused by the roots of a fig that had been scraped off a birds beak as a sticky seed and attached in a branch high in a rainforest tree. The host tree is still encased in these roots but eventually it will be starved of nourishment by the strangler fig and will die leaving a hollow centre within the network of roots.
Using the roots as a good anchor point, several epiphytes have become lodged in this web and enjoy a wonderful view over the treetops.
The rainfall up here in Springbrook National Park is quite a bit higher than that of the suburbs along the sea front only a few kilometers away, so close but so different.
AJ