This week marks my first year of having my own web site. Mainly used for a weekly blog here with my walk through of my weekly best of shots and the occasional how to of how I get the various shots with some behind the scenes shots of some of my set ups. I also have several galleries of the better shots I have in different categories. I've just renewed my yearly subscription so guess I'll be here blogging for another year and showing off some of my work here as well as the usual Google Plus, TSU, and now starting to use Flickr and Ello as well. 
 

So what has happened in the past year, well there has been 4117 separate sessions on my site, of which 14% are returning visitors. The first two months had no visits to the site, then every now and then I would put a link to the site on my google plus stream and that would create some interest in the site, You can see form the spikes in the graph here from Google analytics when I mentioned the site. 
 

In this time I have had people from 93 countries look at my work on my site. 

The biggest number so far comes form the United States the Russia followed by Australia then China, but 93 different countries wow who would have thought. 

My galary pages also have the ability to sell prints from and in year I even sold one small print, mind you that was to another photographer who was testing out the site and the print quality before starting a site of there own, but still the system seamed to work, so something thats available but not something I push. 

This year I'll see about setting up screen saver images to down load from the site as I have had a few people express an interested in getting some of my images as screen savers. But something I'll have to work on. There has also been a few comments added to the guest book on the site so always good to get some feed back on the posts I make, lets me know what people like and would like to have more of. So its been a fun year learning all about keeping a weekly blog going and putting up the better shots each week, or some of the not so good ones with east I've learnt so I can improve. Thanks to all those thats spent some time looking at the site, some longer than others with the vast majority not staying more than 10 seconds on the site, where as others have stayed and then gone on to other pages around the site, thanks. 

All the statistics from the site come form google Analytics in case anyone is wondering. 

Also this week The Australian Geographic web sit has put up one of my shots as shot of the week so something I'm quite happy about. 

http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/photography/reader-photos/2015/07/reader-photo-brown-thornbill

Now back to the blog, Last weekend as usual I went out to the Australian Botanical Gardens, Mount Annan, so heres a walk through of the shots for the week. 

First up is the usual Eastern Yellow Robin (Eopsaltria australis), on the hunt for insects not the the ground, these are found in the woodland area or often in the connections gardens punched on a branch or the trunk of a tree watching for movement on the ground then they drop. 

Next up a small flock of Red-browed Finches (Neochmia temporalis) came by this was one of them sitting sunning it self, before they headed off. 

Walkng along the track I came across small flock of Weebill's (Smicrornis brevirostris) These ones don;t stay still for long as they flitter about the trees also hunting insects. 

After last week not finding many birds this week slightly warmer weather seamed to have bought them all out, this ones of a little Jacky Winter (Microeca fascinans) also on the hunt for small insects in the upper branches.

Over in the Daisy garden outside the plant bank was a small group of wrens this ones a female Superb Fairy-wren (Malurus cyaneus) in amounts the daisies. Makes for a brightly coloured shot.  

August is always a bright time in the Australian Bush with all the wattles coming out, the gardens are no exception with many wattles out in flower there now, these little balls of yellow fluff cover the trees around this time of year. They certainly make a bright sight.

While walking back to the Car I looked up and spotted this Pacific Baza (Aviceda subcristata) was souring on the thermal air currents got this one when it was still reasonably low but within a few minutes it was only a speck in the sky as it kept increasing its elevation.

This week mushrooms were getting really hard to find and I only found one small patch here that were certainly worse for wear these were past there better days, but still managed to get a shot of them thats acceptable. A bit of rain would certainly help here to bring a few more to life, with winter here and no rain not good mushroom hunting times at present. We'll see what the next few weeks brings. 

Over the last few weeks I've kept hearing these ones calling high up in the trees of the woodland area but have;t been able to sight them then this week in the connections gardens there was two of them little Fan-tailed Cuckoos (Cacomantis flabelliformis) these have a loud call that is heard from quite a way away, but not always easy to spot them this time they were in the open in a couple of sheoak trees. Though they didn't stay long so only got a couple of shots of these.

The last shot or this week was of a Little Wattlebird (Anthochaera chrysoptera) feeding not on the wattles that are out but on a Banksia. 

Thats it for this week and the first year of these posts. 

Be back next week with another week of what ever I find in front of my camera. 

Thanks for dropping by my Blog. 

Glenn.

This weeks blog post is again a walk through of my shots from last weekend in the Australian Botanical Garden's Mount Annan. Still in the depths of winter here, so not so much in the way of bird life around the last few weeks, Thou the last month of winter now so hopefully the warmer weather around the corner will bring the birds back. Even so still managed to find a few about. 

The first shot here is of a Bell Miner (Manuring melanophrys) often called bell birds, these birds make a distinctive bell noise calling to each other in the colony. They are quite aggressive and chase any other bird specify away for there territory.

The next shot is of the yellow faced honeyeater (Lichenostomus chrysops) still chasing for a better shot of these. again not overly happy with this shot, so will have to keep trying for these ones. 

The Gray fantails (Rhioidura albiscap) are always around though they don't stay to long in any one place often bouncing around in the hunt for insects to eat. These are not to shy and you can get quite close to these its just they don;t stay still to long. 

This next shot was the first mushroom i came on for the day and thought I better get this one incase I don;t find any more, this one was grabbing not he top of a hill in art of the gardens that marked no entire due to regeneration so I could only shoot this one from a distance with the 600mm Sigma instead of the usual marco lens so no flash just as is in this case.

 As I headed back tot he car I though Id try on eh the side of the road as there was a few mushrooms there the other week and I was rewarded with this little one. this was right beside the path so no worries getting close to this one and setting up the flashes for this shot. 

From there I drove over to the connections gardens where I had a walk around again not to much to be seen here in the way of bird life the gardens are very quite at the moment that way. Even the lakes are pretty much deserted with only a few birds about there. This next series of shots is of a White-faced Heron (Egret novaehollandiae) coming in to land along the side of the bank of the lake closest tot eh main car park.  

This next one is on an Eurasian coot, (Fulica atra) these little water birds are often seen in the gardens besides the lakes on the freshly mown lawns, these birds are more suited tot he water and have trouble walking on land, there feet are not webbed like some water birds but have what is called lobed toes, this shot below shots the toes wither little round series of lobes on each toe. This makes them have a difficult time of walking on the land but on the water the almost seam to be able to walk across the top of it when chasing each other about. 

After that I though I'd try the top of the hill again where I found some bird life last week, but that was also empty of bird life so no joy there, but I did find a small family of Wallabies there the first shot is of the mother watching over her journal joey, who is now out of the pouch and taking car of itself.  

The next two are of the little Joey sitting int eh grass and looking around. These are Wallabies and are a smaller version of a Kangaroo basically. 

Well thats it for this weeks Blog post, hope you liked it, thanks for dropping by my blog, more next week. 

Glenn. 

This weeks blog post is again a walk though of the shots taken in the Australian Botanical Garden's mount Annan. Winter is still in full swing here so not so many birds about the last few weeks, I managed to find some and finished up on the way out finding a spot with quite a few, but that's for a little later on.
 

I started off around the Stolen generation area of the gardens in the woodland area, and the first shot I 've got is of the Yellow faced honey eater. These guys are usually pretty fast and don't stay in any place long this one was behind me and when I turned around here he was stilling there waiting. So I turned set and managed this one, it wasn't in the best of light as the face was in shade, but still managed to pull it out of the shadows in lightroom when I got home. So the shot came out OK, still not the best so still need to work to get a really good one of these.  But starting to get there with them.

Nest I stopped off at the plant bank where there's a Daisy garden in flower, quite a few honey bees were doing the rounds of the flowers so I found a group of accessible flowers and waited till a Bee arrived took about 15 minutes till I got this shot, so takes patients to get some of these shots just waiting for the right moment to come along but planning your location. This one was taken with the CAnon 60D and the 100mm f2.8L Macro lens.  
 

From there I went to the Wollemi pine walk of Discovery area haven't been up there for a few weeks and there was quite a few mushrooms up there. So here's a collection of what I found up there.
 

This time there was quite a few white ones up there as well, so that makes a bit of a change and the white contrast well with the darker backgrounds so really stands out.  this two are the same mushroom just slightly different compositions. Hard to pick between them but I think I like the first of the two here. 

Then I found this pair growing on a bank with enough height to get the camera underneath them for this shot.  The shot below this one is the set up I used to take this shot you can also see the lighting conditions that the shot was taken under. 

So the Flash on the left has a brown gel over it to give a bit of a tint tot he shot, gives a bit more depth to the shot rather than the plain white it would have been, the other is a plain flash to give some of the white with the foil reflecting the light back down from the top. As usual I built up the light gone at a time and with out the foil it loses some of it, so each light adds a bit more while giving some shadows to give it interest.  

​From there I started to drive out of the gardens but at the last hill decided to stop and see what was around and here I found a decent collection of birds getting the last light of the day. This ones of a Jacky Winter (Microeca fascinates) it was happy sitting warming it self int eh last of the sun light before the cold nigh set in, occasionally diving on to the ground on some insect it spied.

​Then down in the grass was a small flock of Yellow-rumped Hornbills (Acanthiza Chrysorrhoa) I sat on the ground and they just bounced all around slowly getting closer till I got these couple of shots, these guys were pretty quick and the light was fading so had to up the ISO to keep a respectable shutter speed here other wise they would have all blurry from motion.

This ones the one of the flock standing lookout in a tree over looking the grass area. Not sure it was doing a great job as I was there photographing them the whole time. Maybe it was just enjoying the last of the sun. 

Lastly a little Willie Wagtail (Rhipidura leugophrys) perched in a low branch looking for the last of the insects, the light had turned a nice golden colour by now so the colour of this shot is for the last of the sunlight for the day, the magic hour. This was the last shot for the day.

​Thanks for dropping by my blog. 

Glenn.