Off-Topic

[MagicJ]

That time of the year for the sheep to have a haircut :)

Before

After

They might not have liked it at the time, but they now appreciate it with all the hot weather we have been having.

 

[MagicJ]

Not the best as it was nearing dusk but this is a picture of an Eastern Barred Bandicoot I took recently. This species is not rare, but it is unusual to find them in semi-urban environments :)

 

[MagicJ]

The Eastern Barred Bandicoot made a return tonight - it appears that it can't resist the fallen apricots :) I am actually pretty excited to have this one around the place.

 

[Priscacara]

Nice shots of the bandicoot! All we have here is mynah birds and a large bluetongue that comes to the door now and then, lol been tempted to let it in and see what it wants.

 

[MagicJ]

Vicki called out to me this morning because there was a 'strange' looking bird sitting in a tree.

Grabbed the camera (remembering to change over the lens on the way as I guessed the macro lens was not going to work ;)) and found this:

From what I can tell it is a Grey Goshawk (Accipiter novaehollandiae) - there are two colour morphs, the grey and the white although only the white morph is found in Tasmania. It is "uncommon to rare' in Tasmania and is considered a 'threatened' species so it was a privilege to see this on my property. From the colour of the eyes this is a young one (the eyes turn from yellow/teal to orange and then red as the bird matures) and has probably been out searching for a territory - or eying off the many rabbits we have around at the moment. This is also the only pure white bird of prey to be found anywhere in the world.

:)

 

[MTG]

awesome shots shane nice work!

 

[MagicJ]

They turned out OK - I couldn't get as close as I wanted too because it would just fly off to another tree. As it was I followed it through 3 trees before it flew off somewhere else.

 

[Agent M]

Triple like!

 

[MagicJ]

Triple like!

I thought you might be interested ;)

 

[firebird]

What a beauty:)

 

[daveH]

That fly is National Geographic material ;)

 

[MagicJ]

That fly is National Geographic material ;)

That was a long time ago :p

 

[daveH]

I

That was a long time ago :p

I had to think about it for a while before I posted.

 

[MagicJ]

It doesn't seem like a year since I posted up some new photo's :eek

I think the Royal Gramma has to be one of the most beautiful fish available in this hobby - they also have a few sharp little teeth :)

Enjoy :)

 

[MagicJ]

Another nest laid last night - around 440 eggs laid which is one of the largest for this pair.

 

[Nick.C]

if you want to get in further and make it even better and amazing shots, purchase an Extension Tube, if you already don't have one? make sure u get the automatic one. man they are amazing. it's like Macro on top of Macro :P

 

[MagicJ]

It's been a while since I posted up some pictures :eek

Tonight was my first attempt at taking some pictures of the Aurora australis - it was a warm night, albeit a bit windy, and whilst the Aurora was not very strong, and wasn't visible to the naked eye, I was able to get a few decent photo's.

Now that I have some idea what I am doing, I can't wait for the next geomagnetic storm.

 

[MagicJ]

There is some very good aurora activity tonight, quite a bit better than last Friday night - if I didn't have to go to work tomorrow I would have gone for a drive.

 

[VaultBoy]

I want to see the auroras one day. Very jealous!

 

[MagicJ]

I want to see the auroras one day. Very jealous!

You might be surprised, but the night I went you couldn't actually see the aurora with your eye's - it was not bright enough!! The photo shown above was taken with a 20 second exposure. Aurora's are measured by a Kp index from 0 to 9. In Tasmania it needs to be around Kp 5 to be visible - the night I went it was around 3.5.

To be visible in Victoria it needs to be around Kp 7.