1st January 2022

2021 was a funny year for me with my photography. I feel like I am a better photographer but was just not in the right place at the right time to get those landscape shots that I truly love. That said I do feel like I got some better wildlife shots during the year.

Below are some of my favourite photos to tell the story of 2021 from behind my camera month by month.

January

January 2021 found me spending a fair bit of time at Lake Tinaroo. For a period I became obsessed with the dead trees.

I found that the reflections on the water very early in the morning could be stunning. I was soon to discover something else at Tinaroo that would grab all my attention.

At the time there were thousands of butterflies flying around the grass. Not content to wait for them to land I decided to try and capture images of them in flight. BIF usually means “birds in flight”, I was doing “butterflies in flight”.

By the end of January 2021 the hope of a better year than 2020 was looking a forlorn one. Another year of COVID and what comes with it :(

February

February saw me take a few days off to go walkabout with a friend who is also a photographer. We never got any great shots but had a wonderful time exploring the Ravenshoe area together.

March

March saw Yumi and myself in Adelaide for a week to visit my father. Yumi is very much a city person so she loved walking the city which we did nearly every day.

Adelaide City gave me the opportunity to do some street photography. Something that I do not do very much of at all.

Yumi loves the Adelaide Botanical Gardens. We spent a lot of time there and also down by the Torrens River.

For a couple of days we ventured out of Adelaide to visit a location on the Yorke Peninsula. When I was a child my family spent many school holidays at Foul Bay, a place I had not visited in many years. There we woke up to dolphins outside our room. Magical!

As beautiful as Foul Bay is there is lot more to the Yorke Peninsula. We spent one late afternoon and early evening enjoying a sunset at Cape Spencer Lighthouse. You can tell Yumi is having fun :)

We had some quite varied weather but kept on roaming regardless and glad we did. We drove all the way to Corny Point to look at a lighthouse only to be mesmerised by the bright orange/red rocks in front of it. I really have to return there with some more time set aside.

Late March and I am back in Cairns roaming the district. A trip to Lake Tinaroo reveals a much higher water level than back in January. Many of those posts that I photographed back then are well under water.

Much of 2020 was spent in the Tablelands Swamplands. Sadly I did not get the same amount of time there in 2021. When I did however I was blessed with some stunning wildlife.

April

During one of my few visits to the Swamps I was blessed to see the local Black Swans both nesting and in flight. Beautiful birds.

When I think of Swamps I think of the ones that I can walk around and in…Hasties Swamp is not one of those. It has a purpose built bird hide and limited areas around the Swamp that you can walk.

On a rainy day I spent 3-4 hours in the bush at Hasties just sitting with my camera watching the Wandering Whistling Ducks. I was rewarded with this photo when a whole family paddled over to right in front of me.

When it rains I still go out. My wife usually stays home on those days and she wishes she had not on the day I took this photo. The rain had just stopped at Tarzali Lakes and this Platypus swam around in front of me for about 5-10 minutes. One of those magical moments.

May

I spend a lot of time in Barron Gorge but come May 2021 and the water was still dirty and the rain coming and going. I decided to explore the seasonal waterfalls up the side of the Gorge. In the end I scaled right to the top edge revealing a totally different landscape and one very special tree.

Right on the top of the side of Baron Gorge is this amazing fig tree basking in the sunlight shining through the gap in the canopy around it.

No tracks in and I got lost when I took a friend (2nd photo) up the side of the gorge to show him the tree. A very special place found by just exploring.

June

2021 was the last year that I will be taking video for my sons Rugby Union club Barron Trinity Bulls. I have been doing it for a few years now and with my son no longer playing due to a knee reconstruction (rugby injury) it is time for me to spend more time on other things. Bulls are a great club!

With the Rugby season under way my weekend roaming was very limited. That said one weekend I did manage to see a Wedge-tailed Eagle kill another bird in flight and then sit down to eat it. I stuffed up with the inflight photos but did manage to get some good shots of it eating its prey.

July

With Rugby taking up most of my spare time, nearby Barron Gorge became my go to “away from everything” spot. Missing the photos of the Wedge-tailed Eagle taught me to always be ready so when an eel slid out of Barron River and up and over some rocks to another pool I was able to get the shot. The eel was thicker than my arm.

August

Early August and I was up the Tablelands visiting customers. I got this photo at one of my favourite spots on the Tablelands to watch sunset. It is also the same location that I took one of my favourite photos of 2020.

On one of my few trips during the year to Wurruma Swamp I was finding nothing to photograph. Then I discovered the frustration of trying to photograph these little suckers in flight. If butterflies are hard to photograph in flight then dragonflies are next level.

After Barron Gorge my next local go to spot to get away from everything would be Ellis Beach just north of Cairns. I know a spot where Eastern Reef Egrets feed and I love to just sit and watch them hunt. I spent a lot of time there in late 2021 also getting to know the Terns.

Late August Yumi and I visited Granite Gorge. It is privately owned and you have to pay a small admission fee. The highlight for us was the dinosaur footprints in the rocks.

September

August I moved out of the workshop location I have been at for 13 plus years. I took the month off and early September I was still not back at work full time. I was just starting to move into the new location, something that as I write this I still have not properly finished :)

During that time off work I decided to visit some of the very popular locations that I generally avoid during a week day hoping there would be few people there. I was wrong! On the weekends they must line up under Stoney Creek Falls for the selfies.

October

By October I am trying to catch up with work after the time off. Barron Gorge became my go to getaway usually quite late afternoon. By the time I am usually walking out it is dark and that was the case when I found this fella waiting for me back at the car.

I delivered a ring to a customer in Tarzali during October and after that meeting I ducked out to near Ravenshoe to see if I could get lucky with a sunset at a particular location. Tumoulin Rd near Ravenshoe is the highest road in Queensland and a beautiful spot to watch the sunset from.

I am usually pretty good at spotting snakes but if my wife had not been watching carefully from behind me I would have stood on this 6 foot plus python. Such a beautiful colour and those eyes…..if only it had poked its tongue out for me.

During October I had a couple of visits to Townsville for work. On the way there and back I explored Girramay Country for the first time. With Hinchinbrook Island as the backdrop the beaches in Girramay National park are stunning. Cardwell State Forest is also well worth a visit, especially now that we have had a bit of rain.

November

November was all about getting to know Behana Gorge/Creek again before the big wet comes. About 3 years or more ago this was my place to get away from it all. During my visits in November 2021 I learnt where this little Azure Kingfisher likes to hang out. Interesting fact is that the Azure Kingfisher has only 3 toes!

December

Near the end of 2021 I hurt my foot. For much of December I was unable to wear shoes. I visited the beach where I could get away with being bare foot.

I am glad to have survived 2021 and can only hope that 2022 is an improvement. Happy New Year!