Wanting Black Swans in flight — David Taylor - Master Jeweller

22nd June 2022

I have had some amazing light when I have visited Wurruma Swamp over the years. As much as I love photos like the one above I have failed to get any decent photos of the Black Swans in flight. They are usually far off in the distance as they make their loud flapping sound.

On this visit the light was very flat but there were quite a few Swans present. As usual they moved away on my arrival and the only ones to be seen in flight were far away.

An hour after my arrival, the Swans come closer.

From my visits to Wurruma I know if I sit quietly and wait the Swans will return to whatever they were feeding on near me when I arrived. An hour later they did just that.

No longer interested in me, a Swan cleaning itself.

Once they could see I was in the same spot every time they looked, they relaxed. Most were cleaning themselves in between feeding.

Occasionally I would hear the sound of those huge wings pounding the air and turn to see a bird not flying but fanning its wings. No luck yet.

Distracted, I started taking photos of water lilies.

I should have known not to but I started taking photos of other things. While I was taking photos of water lilies another bird on my “get better photos of” list swam right in front of me.

Male Green Pygmy Goose that day right in front of me.

For two years now I have been trying to get nice clean photos of the Green Pygmy Goose and despite the light being terrible the fact that they were so close to me I could not resist the temptation to concentrate on them for a while.

As soon as I gave those Geese all my attention the Swans put on the show I was hoping to capture. Some of the Swans that were near decided it was time to fly to another spot and I had my camera set up for slow moving birds and stationary water lilies …… not for birds in flight…….I should know better.

My camera settings were all wrong but I did manage to get this photo. LOL now I will have to go back soon and try again. At least my wife loves to go to Wurruma with me.

I had a work meeting at Atherton on the way home at 7:30pm so I decided to stick around for sunset rather than arrive there early.

The high water level restricts movement around the swamp.

The water is still very high in the Swamp at the moment so I was not able to move to any of my favourite spots for a sunset photo.

This was a bit of a disappointment as the eastern sky looked promising and the sky colour was starting to spread across the water top to the west as the sun got lower. I stayed anyway and it was well worth it.

The sky went very red for sunset and bounced that light back down onto the Swamp surface around a silhouetted Swan. Time to go to that meeting :)