Canon EF 200-400 f4 IS and Canon 7D at Spring time in Brisbane

 

Spring time is great for photography. With flowers blooming everywhere you have plenty of subjects to shoot. It is not only flowers, but the bees and the birds that flock to feed on them that make interesting subjects.

I get up early on weekends and armed with the Canon EF 200-400 f4 IS, Canon 7D and my monopod with a tilt head, drive around the reserves to find something worth shooting. One morning I spotted this tree in full bloom in a reserve from a distance. It looked very attractive with its fluorescent pink flowers against the early morning blue sky. It turned out to be the Shaving Brush Tree  [ PSEUDOBOMBAX ELLIPTICUM ].

This tree is originally from  Mexico and Central America and grows quite big. The specimen I was looking at was quite big. I got close and started photographing the lovely pink flowers against the blue sky. Through the lens I could see bees and other insects hovering over the flowers. It was not long before the first bird arrived.  I soon found out that this tree was favourite with the Blue faced honey eater [Entomyzon cyanotis].  It is a beautiful bird with olive green upper parts and a patch of bare blue skin on the sides of it,s face. In juveniles the bare patches are yellowish green.They kept coming and moved from flower to flower frequently. They never spend much time on a single flower and were constantly moving and I also noticed that they mostly fed with their backs to the sun. I had to constantly be on the alert and wait to find one with good light on it. The tree was quite tall and I was shooting at minimum 400mm but mostly with the 1.4x built in converter engaged. When the bird moved to another flower it was challenging to find it again in the viewfinder. The birds movements were sudden and unpredictable. I patiently kept on following them and my patience was rewarded. but the action was fast. Finding it in the viewfinder, locking focus and shooting kept me on my toes.

Again the monopod helped a lot, taking the weight off my hands and keeping me mobile as I had to move constantly to where the birds were feeding. I find this combo very handy for field photography.
I'm on planning on buying a 7D mk ii shortly. I would love to hear from anyone who is already using  a 7D mk ii for bird and wildlife photoography.