Blog Update and Cross-Posting and the new 'Sunday Walk' feature.

So, I notice I've been away from here for quite a time. Between a full-time university degree and a full-time job, something had to slip. Unfortunately, my drawing was one of those things to take the hit. I managed to maintain my photography, and my library of reference photos has steadily grown, but I haven't been so good about putting them up here. I'll make up for that.

As things are a tad busy, right now, with a research essay, a 5-minute speech, a listening test and a vocabulary test due in the next three weeks, I'll start by cross-posting the photographic entries I've maintained on my writer's blog. As things ease off, I'll go back to some of the GIMP usage blog entries I have lined up, and I'll get back into the sketching - probably starting with some bird, spider and insect sketches.

In the meantime, I took a walk yesterday morning, and this time, I took my camera with me. I have a dual-language picture book in mind. The text is written, but I need some specific photographs for illustrations. Some of yesterday's shots will do just fine. Here's a sample of what I saw:

I experimented with auto-focus, but the deal with that is that it doesn't always focus on what you want:

This white-faced heron, had a lovely backdrop. Next, I saw a cattle egret:

But he was soon upstaged by the heron, flying past.

Of course, I followed, and discovered that the problem of photographing in nature is that nature can get in the way... not to mention unforseen bits of litter.

This cormorant was just plain hard to position on screen and was right at the edge of what the close-up could handle.

Further down, Mother Duck wasn't too happy to see me.

And the magpie was too preoccupied with food to give me a better angle.

The spur-wing plovers kept right on flying, complaining all the while.

The dusky moorhen was very camera-shy, and made life extremely difficult. Definitely camera shy. This little guy or gal will feature in a later blog.

I also saw two pairs of Eastern lorikeets, but they were even less cooperative than the moorhens.

I saw another magpie, who didn't mind the camera.

And some peewees, who flew off when they saw it.

And the king parrots... I think... were so uncooperative, that this was the best shot I could get of the six that were flying around in the morning sun.

My quest for sulphur-crested cockatoos was derailed by a passing balloon, looking for someplace to land. I rather hoped it would come down where I could take a few shots of the landing, but it was not to be. Here's my first shot of its descent.

I went home a little disappointed, but took some comfort from the top-knot pigeons that came to visit.

I should also add, that by 'Sunday Walk', I don't mean a walk on Sunday... not all the time. I mean that Sunday is the day I will upload a post of photos taken while on a walk from that week. I hope that's okay.