1/3/15

Saturday, January 03, 2015 - ,,,,,

Rotoriti and new Pencils!

Mine (left) and my friends (right) fantails.
  I can (almost) finally start the drawings for my field guide! All I need now is a non-bound art pad.
 My Derwent pencils arrived on Wednesday. Their color is great and my drawings turn out better with them. Compare the male House Sparrows below. The left one is done with Derwent, and the right one with Faber Castell's Classic Colour.
Derwent
Old Pencils
 I've been so annoyed at 2.2x zoom that I've tried "digiscoping". I don't have a very good scope, in fact it's a rifle scope with a toilet roll attached! I've got photo of it at the bottom of the page.

Yellowhammer Juv. at Rainbows in the Puddles
Showing Rainbows in the Puddles my "digiscopeing" technique with an old Rifle scope.
 On Friday we visited Rainbows in the Puddles house. We got quite close to some Yellowhammers.  She lives in a farmed area with some pines around.
In her family's small pine woodlot we saw a juvenile bellbird.



Lake Rotoriti


  Today we decided to visit the lake. We walked along the lake edge track one and a half hours then turned back. There was an abundance of Black-billed gull, 60 or so, but there was also an abundance of tourists! The motorboats made in hard to hear the birds.
 The gulls consisted of both adults and loud,sulky teenagers. I think they were unhappy because no one would feed them.
 There were few birds around other than Mallards and Gulls. Even sparrows were lesser in number.
 As we walked the track, a kayaker was paddling along the shore. He disturbed two Masked Lapwings(Spur-winged plover) which is my first record of them at the lake.


On the walk I found this,maybe it will fit my camera!