So after much thought, by which I mean the fastidious perusal of countless review sites and forums like the frugal Scrooge I am, I settled and purchased a new Slik U8000 tripod. A nice entry level tripod, it suits my purposes as my gear is fairly light in weight. I have no complaints with it after a day of playing around, although I can see why so many people rave about ball heads. Pan and tilt heads do take a fair bit of time and patience. On thing they are good for however, is nice smooth panning when shooting video. Here are some of today’s efforts…
Feel free to switch the videos to HD 720p in bottom right hand corner of the videos if you have a faster connection.
This White-bellied Cuckoo-shrike (Curacina papuenis) was searching the foliage for food at the edge of the mangroves at the northern end of the esplanade.
The tide was at about 50% when I was out so I went to the most reliable place to find waders close enough to photograph and video them — the storm water drain. The birds often congregate around the freshwater runoff.
Not the best video, but this was the first time I have seen this species on the esplanade. It was incredibly hot and humid but I actually enjoy birding in the middle of the day. Usually, there are far fewer people which means less distractions and spooking of the birds. It is a good rule of thumb that birds are more active at dawn and dusk, but I am certain that this not the case for mangroves. In my experience, there is much more activity in the heat of the day. It could of course simply be that the mangroves I regularly visit happen to be a good day time feeding area.
All this video processing and uploading has taken a long time so I think I will put the rest up later!
