Wetlands and Swamp — David Taylor - Master Jeweller

2nd January 2022

One of my favourite photos from last year was the photo above of Mareeba Wetlands which was totally unplanned. I just saw a nice sunset forming on the way home from Abattoir Swamp at Mt Molloy, stopped and took the photo.

Knowing that rain was heading our way late afternoon on Sunday I headed up to the Tablelands to photograph the same area again. Bad weather can provide some beautiful light for photos.

Brown-Backed Honeyeater, Abattoir Swamp - Mt Molloy.

I arrived early afternoon so I headed to Abattoir Swamp - Mt Molloy to kill some time whilst I waited for sunset. I parked myself under a tree at the swamp and just waited to see what would happen. Apart from the Brown-backed Honeyeaters not much was happening with the birds.

There may not have been many birds revealing themselves for photos but there was an abundance of dragonflies.

I love a challenge so I decided to try and photograph them in flight, something I have done in the past. That kept me busy for a while :)

There were other insects there as well near me in the grass. I love looking for things that you would usually never give much attention.

Bu the time I got back to Mareeba Wetlands the rain clouds were moving in and the mood was getting quite dark and stormy.

A fire burnt through this area a while back and you can see the new ground growth from the recent rain popping up around the burnt trees. Quite a stark contrast

I never got anything spectacular on this day but it was still a beautiful sunset to witness.

Mareeba Wetlands, 6:45pm 2nd January 2022

Probably my favourite photo from the afternoon was this one that I took on the walk back to the car. It sort of sums up the day, a bit of blue sky, colour and darkness all in the one photo.

I will try again to see if I can get another great shot here like that rainbow sunset back in November 2021.