Alan Sweet | Atherton Tablelands Bird Photography Group Coordinator
Membership
Group membership now stands at 140. Alan expressed concern at the lack of contributions to the webpage. He encouraged those present to be more active in posting images and comments.
Monthly meeting
The April meeting was held at 15 Countryview Drive, Atherton on Monday, 8 April. The next monthly meeting is scheduled for:
10:00 am Monday, 5 May at 15 Countryview Drive, Atherton
Bird photography meet
The monthly photographic meet will alternate between Hastie’s Swamp and Tinaburra on the second Saturday of each month. The next meet will take place at:
7:00 am Saturday, 27 April at Hastie's Swamp
Scrubwren query
Joan Baker had submitted a photograph of a Scrubwren, taken the previous week at Hypipamee. She requested clarification as to identity. It is notoriously difficult to differentiate between the Atherton and Large-billed Scrubwren. Both are present at Hypipamee. After questions regarding the habits, location, and colouring of the bird, those present agreed that it could very well be the Atherton Scrubwren.
Knowing the difficulties of photographing these birds, Joan was congratulated on the quality of her photograph.
Great Crested Grebes
Alan Sweet told the group that he was interested in finding out more about the Great Crested Grebes on Lake Barrine. He wondered if there had been any study done on the birds. He had been able to find little information.
Apparently, the Grebes have been reported on Barrine for the last eight to ten years with numbers varying from twenty to two hundred birds. Keith Fisher commented that they had been there for longer than ten years. Further information indicates that the birds are present all year round. If that is so then they must be breeding here. Yet, Alan could find no photos of young grebes from the Lake to support this.
Alan felt that to undertake a reasonable study would involve observing the birds two or three times per month. They can be observed by telescope from the shore but whether that would yield satisfactory results was debatable. The birds are very wary of people and difficult to approach. Perhaps a small boat with an electric motor would allow closer observation.
He had contacted NPWS to find out if there were any access restrictions to the lake or any impediments to undertaking a study of the birds. He was awaiting a response.
The Challenge
This month’s Challenge “Black and White” was well received with around 40 submissions. The challenge is open to all members provided the bird occurs on the Atherton Tablelands.
There was some lively discussion about the entries for this month’s challenge. This discussion was mainly centred around composition and cropping and produced some interesting opinions!
All submissions for the ATBPG Challenge are presented for comment at the Group’s monthly meeting. They are then posted as an Album on the Media page.
The 'Portrait' Challenge continues until Tuesday, 30 April.
A new challenge has been issued for April / May. The subject is:
Reflections
There is plenty of water lying around at the moment, so reflections should not be hard to find!
Please email submissions to alansweet2023@outlook.com by Friday, 31 May.
As usual, the challenge rules are accessible via the “Featured” button at the top of the Facebook page.
If anyone has images relative to the topic, but that may be ineligible for inclusion in the challenge, (i.e. images taken outside the qualifying period) they are encouraged to post them to the Facebook page.
Software
As is to be expected, the quality of submissions for the challenge varies considerably. Many images could be improved quickly and easily with the software that is readily available now. Discussion among the group revealed that:
Everyone was shooting in RAW;
There was no stand-out favourite software.
Alan Sweet