Moving Targets: Daintree River
October 2006
On the menu today is an early morning boat trip for wildlife viewing on the Daintree River. Our guide/boat driver, based in Daintree village, comes highly recommended by many birders and several other bird photographers, so I am looking forward to a productive outing. Certainly our guide is a hit with the other eight people (a mix of families and people carrying binoculars) in the group—knowledgeable, amusing, and full of stories to tell.
In terms of photography, though, it’s far from satisfactory. In my opinion, our guide approaches the birds far too fast, so that even when he stops the engine we’re still moving so fast I can barely focus at all (autofocus nor manual) despite being close enough for some great shots of some of the birds. In addition to this jerky stopping and starting, he shouts out the birds’ names excitedly, making me jump and giving the photographers but a few seconds to get what shots we can before gunning the engine and heading off to the next find. True, he makes sure the two camera-toters in the group get front seats, but it seems he’s mostly interested (understandably) in having the group see as many species as possible, including, of course, long looks at estuarine crocodiles. Aussies certainly do get excited about their crocs!
So, in two hours I have little to show but a few barely-sharp photos of an Azure Kingfisher, obtained almost at the end of the trip. Expensive photos indeed. The moral of the story if you’re a bird photographer is pick your tour carefully, or shell out for a personal trip making it clear that your goal is photography and you need plenty of time to get your shots.