@tessa_murray@mastodon.au
@tessa_murray@mastodon.au avatar

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 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

wonderofscience, to random
@wonderofscience@mastodon.social avatar

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.

tessa_murray, to PetBirds
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A white-winged Fairy Wren on the foreshore this morning. They are just starting to get their breeding colours, the one I saw last week was almost entirely brown with just a blue tail and white patch on its wings.

tessa_murray, to PetBirds
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This is a straw necked ibis. It's not quite a "bin chicken" but certainly not a favoured bird for most people. I don't even normally photograph them, but I was a bit bored waiting for raptors to turn up and was practising birds in flight. Then I got this one banking into the sun with the light glowing off its rainbow feathers and I have a new obsession. (nb this is heavily cropped and I have done a fair bit of playing in lightroom to get the colours emphasised)

tessa_murray, to PetBirds
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This is the fully coloured male red-winged fairy-wren (with lunch).

tessa_murray, to random
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I had to lie in a puddle to get this, and it was much colder than the sunshine suggests! Glossy Ibis (yes, again).

tessa_murray, to photography
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Nature is so cool sometimes - this is a common weed

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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Glossy Ibis are amongst my favourite birds. I've been hoping to get a good one in flight for a looong time now, and finally got one today. I love the shine on the wings.

tessa_murray, to PetBirds
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1 month in France WITHOUT my birding lens. Somehow I survived, although I was reduced to taking pictures of pigeons. This one is quite nice though. 🙂 Was cooing at us from its nest in a hole in a wall that is probably around 3000 years old (Roman ruins in Arles) which is also quite cool.

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.

Quokka, to random

I stood at the counter for 4 measured minutes waiting for eye contact, or hi, never mind take my order. Left.

Why do I never remember how shit KFC is. On my way to Nando's now.

tessa_murray,
@tessa_murray@mastodon.au avatar

@Quokka It's a good thing. The idea of KFC is always so great, the reality of actually eating it .......... less so. Nando's is way nicer. Enjoy.

Quokka, to random

KFC. Gonna do it. You can't stop me.

tessa_murray,
@tessa_murray@mastodon.au avatar

@Quokka turns out they can. Lol.

Quokka, to random

McGowan's called a press conference for 12:45 with much speculation he's going to step down. We may lose our State Daddy.

tessa_murray,
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@Quokka Nah. It'll be something about sport or a band.

tessa_murray,
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@Quokka Crazy! Good to see someone step down on their own terms. Hope the replacement is not so cozy with Woodside and Chevron!

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
@tessa_murray@mastodon.au avatar

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.

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