@tessa_murray@mastodon.au
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tessa_murray

@tessa_murray@mastodon.au

Mostly I'm going to post photos of birds, with the occasional other creature thrown in. Scenery and humans are a rarity. All photos my own and most taken in Perth or around Western Australia unless specified. #birds #photography #birdphotography #nature

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tessa_murray, to Birds
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Got up at sparrow's fart to go and see the ospreys. Took 5 photos (of a cormorant) and then gave up and went to see some more amenable birds! The rainbow bee-eaters did not disappoint 🙂 The background looks so dark because I was exposing for the bird, but I have photoshopped out the end of a branch. Will post the raw image in comments so you can see the edits if interested bird photography

tessa_murray,
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prior to editing, cropped only. I have applied a mask to the subject and slightly lifted exposure, and used photoshop to remove the branch.

stshank, to Mexico
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A great thing about Sayulita, Mexico, is there's one patch of the Pacific Ocean that apparently is filled with the dumbest fish. Over and over brown pelicans speared into the water, shooting out their heads at the last moment like a snake striking to snatch fish from the water. The acrobatics on display were fantastic.

tessa_murray,
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@stshank Our pelican in Australia are not anywhere this athletic! What a cool behaviour to witness!

ct_bergstrom, to Birding

Today I had the opportunity to see a visitor far from home, a tiny snow bunting from the arctic, well out of range in Seattle.

It was completely unafraid of people; I wonder if it had even seen humans before.

An absolutely charming bird full of life and character. I fell in love at once.

tessa_murray,
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@ct_bergstrom What a beautiful little bird!

tessa_murray, to Birds
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When I'm feeling particularly "in the flow' I like to waste hours trying to catch swallows in flight. Some of these are babies - they don't fly at quite the warp speed of the adults. These birds were also following a vaguely predictable path and in bright light which makes tracking them slightly easier. For the first time in my life I feel that spending more time playing video games as a kid would have given me some useful skills.

A juvenile welcome swallow flying over water. it appears to be looking at the camera
A adult welcome swallow, wings spread, banking over some reed heads
A young welcome swallow banking over water.

tessa_murray,
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@danielhz the juveniles don't have the 'swallow' tail yet

tessa_murray, to nature
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Something a bit different - these are bluebottles blown onto shore by a blustery wind. In the ocean they sting, but on the sand with the sunlight streaming through their sails they are exquisitely beautiful.

3 images of blue bottle jellyfish stranded on a white sand beach. The sail is finely veined and mostly translucent, whilst the body is a vivid blue jelly like structure. 2 images are side on and the 3rd is taken from above.
3 images of blue bottle jellyfish stranded on a white sand beach. The sail is finely veined and mostly translucent, whilst the body is a vivid blue jelly like structure. 2 images are side on and the 3rd is taken from above.

tessa_murray,
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@anathema_device which make them sound so scary! I've been stung heaps of times and survived each episode - except that time I was kite surfing and something very very painful got in my wet suit and I nearly killed myself trying to remove the wetsuit whilst still handling the kite.

tessa_murray, to Birds
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This is a male purple-backed fairy-wren. I think these are the most shy of our WA fairy-wrens. They often like to be near water and tend to be a little bit quieter and more hidden than the blue ones or the red-winged version. I caught this guy as he went down to drink, then lost sight of him and had to wait and wait. I was just about to leave when he popped out for a second before disappearing back into the bushes.

tessa_murray,
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@cytokine_storm yes - good point about the blue-breasted fairy-wrens. The ones at Stirling Range retreat were very friendly, but I've always struggled with them elsewhere especially Dryandra. Our splendid are absolute little posers though - and the White-wingeds at Mindarie are currently very habituated to photographers (thanks to the ospreys) and will just about do cartwheels to get their photo taken!

tessa_murray, to PetBirds
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Birds in rain. One day I'm going to wreck a very expensive camera doing this - but I LOVE the atmosphere that you get when photographing birds in drizzle. These were all taken at Dryandra nature reserve. Species in the alt-text

2 New Holland Honeyeaters having an argument in the rain. The branches are covered in lichen.
A female western spine bill feeding on some banksia flowers. In the rain.
A male western whistler. Previously known as a golden whistler. It's beak is open in song and there are fine rain droplets on it's head.

tessa_murray,
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@anathema_device it's funny how the same motifs keep turning up in bird shapes and plumage! These birds used to be called a Golden Whistler which was such an appropriate name, then someone decided we have a different species and they got demoted to Western Whistler.

cytokine_storm, to random

Its terrible, but god I love the ham and cheese toastie on virgin australia flights. Not sure this is really in the spirit of aber es habt ein Fenster! ❤️ Foto snapped heute uber Esperance, WA.

tessa_murray,
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@cytokine_storm I really like that on Virgin you choose whether or not you want a meal, and the aisles are not frequently clogged with meal carts. I can't comment about the hame and cheese toast but it looks better than any included meal I've had on that other airline in the last decade.

tessa_murray, to spiders
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And these are of Mr Handsome Pants doing his sexy dance. I only have a cobbled together macro set up using a 50 mm lens with a 35 mm extension tube and no fancy flash or ring diffusers. This means I get an incredibly narrow depth of field - and even though the spiders are only a few mm in size I can't quite get the head and body in focus. I could try focus stacking - but it's Spring and all my spare time must be spent outside enjoying nature - not computer screens 😁

A peacock spider (M gummier) in partial dance mode. His brightly coloured abdomen is lifted but not completely flared and 2 palps are extended out laterally.
He is now side on to the camera and his abdomen is fully flared showing the peacock like colours
He is now full on to the camera and his abdomen is fully flared showing the peacock like colours

tessa_murray,
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@jarulf Not in this instance - he will have to keep trying. Sometimes the girls chase them away, and have also been witnessed to eat unsuccessful suitors (the theory is that the blue abdomen waving is to dazzle the females and stop them predating on the smaller males).
I have got (and unfortunately very bad) video of one of the girls leaping onto and subsequently eating another similarly sized spider.

wonderofscience, to random
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Incredible footage of a Kingfisher dive captured in slow motion.

Kingfishers compensate for the reflection and refraction of water to pinpoint the depth and position of prey underwater.

Video credit: RTÉ
Watch the full video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CsyenHROSE

video/mp4

tessa_murray,
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@wonderofscience The vast majority of these "amazing" kingfisher shots are set up using tanks and purposely disabled fish. It can be very dangerous for the kingfisher (imagine hitting an invisible glass wall at that speed) and is far from sporting for the fish.

devinprater, to accessibility

I’m enjoying Mona’s ability to turn off boosted toots from those who boost undescribed images, and stuff in italic or bold fonts, that mess with my screen reader. So they can keep boosting, and I don’t have to even come across it. I love the clients for the blind on Windows too, but goodness it’s nice using a client that has full support for Mastodon.

Like, I’m just tired of continuously asking or posting about Alt-text or media descriptions or italic fonts and on and on. Digital accessibility just doesn’t get talked about, even here, to where it’s in our social consciousness. I mean I’m not saying every post should be all screen reader this and accessible that, but I think if we talked about digital accessibility as much as we talk about, say, cats, I think more people would get it. There are tons of resources out there. There are, I’d say, a good hundred blind people on Mastodon, and even more of people with other disabilities. And yes, we should include every disability, not just certain kinds. I think I’m started to get why a lot of blind people just don’t even do the whole advocating thing. It’s hard, some sighted people are gonna lash out at you. And it’s like trying to climb a slippery hill with no shoes or socks on. You’re gonna fall back down and have to start all over again. Cause it almost never sticks. People without disabilities are just gonna see something and boost it. Like, they don’t have to think about it. They see it, so it’s there.

But until pigs fly, I’m glad we can at least control what we see on here, at least a little. I’d love to be able to just get rid of any inaccessible content. No I don’t need to be told that that’s hard. I know. Everything about accessibility is hard because it’s foreign to non-disabled people and it doesn’t affect them personally. I get it. Every day I get it.

tessa_murray,
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@devinprater Hi Devin - I have a question and I hope you take it in the spirit I'm asking it. I ALWAYS now try to post alt text on Mastodon - simply because people ask for it here. I don't on Facebook or Instagram - on FB I personally know almost everyone who follows me and none have visual deficits. On Instagram I'm assuming that as it is primarily a photography sight most people following are doing so to literally see the images.
But my question is - as someone who primarily posts images without much text - how many visually impaired people are interested in the photos I post? I'm very happy to provide alt text (and sorry if I do need the odd nudge), but I don't want to be spending time writing it everyone accessing my posts doesn't need it.
If other non visually impaired people also just like having the description then that's also some great positive feedback and I'm happy to keep doing so.
It's also great to get feedback about the quality of my alt text - too much, too little, too obvious, too arty farty......

tessa_murray, to PetBirds
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When I first started using a telephoto lens to photograph teeny tiny leeetle birds I felt like I was being transported into a magical miniature world. Today took me right back to those wonder filled first experiences, but with a bit more technique to back it up. It looks like this superb fairy-wren is standing watch over a little fairy garden.

tessa_murray, to nature
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Sunset clouds before the longest night of the year. From tomorrow the days start getting longer again - HOORAY. I will TRY to photograph the sunrise tomorrow if my fingers don't fall off in the cold. Did I mention I hate winter?

tessa_murray, to PetBirds
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These are pied stilts. They come to "my" lake (Herdsman) in Summer, sometimes in BIG numbers and then they tend to leave over Winter so it was quite a pleasant surprise to find this group in what is otherwise a bit of a quiet time for birds here.

tessa_murray, to nature
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Look - no creatures! (well there probably are, but you could genuinely call this a landscape photo - even if I did use a birding lens for it). The ONLY thing I like about Winter is that you can sleep in and still catch the sunrise, and that all those raindrops and the rising sun make everything look quite magical.

tessa_murray, to random
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If you look really closely you will see some little legs dangling from Dad's body. When danger threatens the male comb crested jacanas (they do all the child care) whistle to their young who run over and hop into safety under Dad's wings. Sometimes the legs don't fit 😆

tessa_murray, to random
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Nice fly-by from a white breasted sea eagle in Kakadu.

tessa_murray, to photography
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One of the most incredible things I've had the privilege of seeing was the many many birds hunting along the fire fronts in Litchfield National Park. The fires are fuel reduction blazes done in the early dry season - when the grass is dry enough to burn, but the soil and trees hold enough moisture that the fire stays small and 'cool'. The fires are small enough that most animals can escape them and they pose little threat to people or infrastructure. Blazes later in the dry season are a completely different beast.

tessa_murray, to photography
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I'm bbbaaaacckkk! Just spent an amazing week in the Northern Territory - obviously mostly photographing their wonderful birds. These lovelies are red collared lorikeets (closely related to rainbow lorikeets), and, unlike in WA they are native and therefore politically correct to photograph 🙄). These are coming into a bird feeder at the Batchelor holiday park and it was spectacular to watch.

tessa_murray, to random
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Willy wagtails can be nasty little buggers! This one had no qualms about karate kicking the much large Australian hobby and eventually drove it off

The falcon now appears to be screeching in fear and is about to take off, whilst the wagtail is flying away.

tessa_murray, to random
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I am always pretty conscious of whether I am disturbing birds or not - so I really don't like it when the bird is watching ME. This Australian Hobby Falcon certainly had a good look (maybe there was a dragonfly on my head?) but went back to scanning the area, flew off and came back to the same perch so I don't THINK I was bothering it.

tessa_murray, to random
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No it's not in perfect focus. Do you know how fast these things take off! Sacred kingfisher with a bit of tidying in lightroom - photo taken at ISO 25600 1/2000s 700mm so pretty happy to get the feathers even if the eye isn't sharp.

tessa_murray, to Birds
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I spent the evening trying (mostly unsuccessfully) to photograph swallows in flight. They were happily zipping along the water's surface catching insects but the light there wasn't bright enough for the insanely high shutter speed required (1/5000s) to freeze them. I got a couple as they flew above the reeds, and even better when I found a branch that they were sometimes landing on and got them either coming in or just taking off. Always a fun challenge!

A swallow banking with it's wings outspread and it's shiny back showing nicely.
A swallow that has just taken off from a branch. It's belly is towards the camera and it's wings are outspread.

tessa_murray, to Weather
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Crazy skies over the Murchison after last weeks cold front passed through. This is a HDR merged image using different exposures for the sky and foreground - not a technique I've really played with much before but I like the results here. #landscape #weather

tessa_murray, to random
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How cool is this critter - it's red or velvet mite and they come out after rain. Not a tick and no threat to people, just very bright red.

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