Lunch Break Starlings
November 2006
When you hear the term “wildlife photographer”, the image of some intrepid type trekking through the wilderness comes to mind, I’ll bet. Actually I get a lot of my images in some pretty mundane places, such as these nesting Metallic Starlings photographed at a picnic site next to the noisy, busy bus terminal in Tully, QLD where we pulled in for a picnic lunch.
It was an opportunity not to be missed. There were scores of the birds building their nests among the hanging branches of several huge trees shading the site. They were used to seeing people so they ignored me, going about their activities.
Handsome, with black iridescent plumage and brilliant red eyes, the starlings chattered and displayed constantly. While I ate my cheese sandwich, I looked for predictable patterns of behavior to decide where to work: this pair’s nest was fairly low down and they returned to build over and over again landing in the same position each time.
It couldn’t have been a worse time of day for lighting, though: noon on a sunny day. I solved that by choosing a pair that was nesting in total shade, and filled in the backlit subjects with flash.