Enderby Island was a morning landing. I chose the full circuit walk because it covered all habitats and offered the best chance for Subantarctic Snipe. The passengers that did the circuit walk also got to land first and spend the most time on the island. I'm confident that this option was the best choice for photography having covered the ground permitted on the other options.

I was on the first Zodiac out. We landed at the research huts, changed to hiking shoes and waited for the other groups. We had previously been briefed on the animals and told that knowingly approaching within 50 meters of Yellow-eyed Penguin was not permitted.  This resulted in us waiting on the beach for around an hour and a half watching a group of them repeatedly approach the beach and retreat in response to the slightest movement by a Sea Lion.

Carnley Harbour

Carnley Harbour offered two zodiac cruises, the first departing early enough that the light was a genuine improvement on the previous day at the Snares. We entered through the eastern passage, flanked by tussock-covered cliffs, and headed first to a cave area on the northern wall where Auckland Island Shags were nesting on ledge formations. Antarctic Terns also perched on the exposed rock nearby. The light was flat but even, and with the 300 mm f/2.8, sometimes extended to 420 mm with a 1.4× converter, conditions were calm. A Light-mantled Sooty Albatross appeared close on the water at one point, it was great to be down at eye level in the zodiac.

Megaherbs were in full flower across the slope - the spectacle that the botanist Joseph Hooker called second to none outside the tropics, and the description holds. The vegetation was denser and more varied in colour than anything seen at Enderby Island or on the approach to Mt Honey's mid-slopes.

Southern Royal Albatross were nesting almost immediately once we cleared the lower tussock, and further up, groups of four or five birds were engaged in courtship, calling and spreading their wings, lifting into the wind above the ridge. They climbed to considerable height, then swept back down in slow arcs over the sea. I stayed approximately 100 to 150 metres below the summit, choosing to spend the time working compositions - landscape framings with the bay visible below, closer portraits of nesting birds, and the courtship groups in flight - rather than continuing to the top.

On the return we paused at the feral Sitka Spruce, reportedly one of the most isolated trees in the world and a notable artefact of the island's pastoral history, and briefly observed a Campbell Island Teal that had been spotted near the meteorology buildings. Campbell Island Shags were passed at pace on the zodiac return and not photographed, but missing any photographs of those was an acceptable trade for the great time I had on the hill.

I spent a considerable amount of time planning what gear to bring for this trip. I wasn’t operating from direct Subantarctic experience, so I relied on research reading  trip reports, analysing other photographers’ images. The conditions were more mild than winter in Tasmania, so I used that as a reference point for clothing.

From a photography gear perspective, it is useful to think in terms of four operational modes:

1. Photography from the Ship

There were always pelagic birds around the vessel, both offshore and near land, but they didn’t always approach closely. The largest lens you can comfortably handhold is the right choice here. I used my 400mm f/2.8 most of the time; it was my bread and butter. A 100-500mm or 200-600mm would also have been fine.

Wider focal lengths were occasionally useful. I made some “bird in landscape” frames with a 70–200mm, particularly when birds passed nearer the hull in good light. The fast aperture of my lenses was nice at sunrise and sunset.

2. Photography from the Zodiac

In zodiacs you’re often relatively close to the action, but not always - sometimes something interesting is a bit distant. I most frequently used a 300mm f/2.8, sometimes with 1.4× or 2× converters (420mm or 600mm equivalent). That combination worked well for individual portraits and small group compositions. Probably a zoom lens like a 100-500 would be easier to handle. 

Overall, the experience was exceptional. Seeing nesting seabirds and a slice of the Southern Ocean in this context was deeply rewarding.  Bird photography on a Subantarctic cruise is a constrained optimisation problem -  limited access, imperfect light, crowd dynamics, and permit restrictions all shape what is possible. Despite those constraints, there were many moments that will remain vivid for years, and I’m very glad I made the trip.

For a bird list see my eBird trip report.

WavePad allows you to record uncompressed audio, apply basic EQ and filtering, and export files in sensible formats without forcing you into a subscription. They also exposes enough control to be useful without being so complex that it is frustrating to use in the field. There are valid alternative options on both platforms.

The first step is to position yourself to maximise the signal to noise ratio of your recording. Getting closer to the subject will always help - halving the distance will improve the signal to noise ratio by about 6 decibels. If you're using a directional microphone (like a shotgun microphone or a parabolic microphone), then you can also think about the direction to maximise the signal to noise ratio of your recording - try to place the subject at your front and competing noise at the same frequencies at your back.

Once you're ready, point your microphone at your subject and press record. Hold everything very still during this time - any handling noise will come through in the recording. Watch the volume monitor for any clipping and adjust the gain down if it occurs.

Skip this step if you're using a different type of microphone or the one built into your phone. Parabolic microphones are not tonally neutral. A dish boosts higher frequencies more than lower ones, and the amount of boost increases roughly with frequency. They also get more and more directional at high frequencies. A common rule of thumb is a correction of around 6 dB per octave, applied as a downward slope toward the higher frequencies

Once filtering is done, the final step is export. Things to think about:

• Are you exporting WAV or another format?

• Are you keeping the original raw recording as well?

• Are you naming files in a way that makes sense later?

I usually treat the exported file as a processed derivative and keep the original untouched. Keeping the place, time and any species present is a good idea.

Recently I published a trip report about birding for a few days in Timor. This was part a trip that involved travelling to both West Timor and Sumba in Indonesia. This blog post covers the Sumba part of the trip. See this previous post for the Timor part.

After giving up on the buttonquail we made our way to Lewa where we stayed in a homestay.

We returned to Umbu Ratu Nggay at dawn for one more attempt at Sumba Green Pigeon, a species that had remained photographically difficult.

Afterward we revisited the buttonquail site (Yumbo Bridge). With the sun already up, the rocks were warm again, and thermal detection remained ineffective. The sandflies were really active this time, but I had covered up better so just got a few bites on the backs of my hands. This was really the end of the trip. The next morning was an early flight back to Denpasar and eventually home.

I recently spent ten days away from my home in Sydney travelling to Timor and Sumba in Indonesia via Bali. These are two islands in Nusa Tenggara in Indonesia (the eastern part of Timor is independent from Indonesia) and represented a part 2 for this region after a short stay in Lombok earlier in the year. I used Daris Pradikatama to organise the trip. He engaged a local guide on Timor and drivers in both locations. This blog post covers the Timor part of the trip - my intent is to publish separate posts covering Lombok and Sumba.

Most days in Timor were spent birding without large amounts of time stuck in a car.  The weather was generally pleasant - a little cooler and a little less humid than many other locations in Indonesia. The birds showed some wariness (with more in the lowlands), but overall they were not as difficult as Papua, though still noticeably harder than Australia.

After flying Sydney to Denpasar the night before, I slept at the airport hotel in Bali and took a daytime flight to Kupang where I met Daris. We immediately drove towards Soe. The roads were good and there seemed to be various shiny government buildings, but the locals themselves didn't appear to be particularly wealthy compared to other parts of Indonesia.

The first birding site was Mollo Selatan, working a small patch of forest for the Timor near endemic Orange-banded Thrush. The lighting was really poor because an afternoon thunderstorm was building. We saw the thrush and a few other things like Fawn-breasted Whistler and Supertramp Fantail. I took some photos but nothing amazing - the thrush mostly stayed pretty high up in the trees.

We called it a day when the thunderstorm started and went and checked into a hotel in Soe and had dinner. After dinner we returned to a nearby site on private land for some nocturnal work. Timor Boobook was straightforward and we heard several calling after a short walk into the forest. I had some initial success with photos and we also heard Timor Nightjar, so we switched to focussing on that pretty quicky. We successfully got quite close with the lights off using the thermal but when we turned on the lights it was occluded by vegetation and flushed immediately.

Dawn at Jalan Batu Putih was spent trying for species of drier open forest: Timor Friarbird, Timor Cuckoo-Dove, and others typical of the foothills. Very little came close but I scored quite a few lifers! 

Our final Timor morning at Noelbaki focused on Flame-breasted Sunbird, but although we located the birds, none allowed close photography. I did photograph a Pale-headed Munia and had some luck photographing a Red-backed Buttonquail.

Nocturnal wildlife photography has its own kind of magic and excitement. Hours of searching, scanning the dark, and then two eyes glow back at you. The eyeshine of something alive and watching.  But few things flatten that magic faster than red-eye, steel-eye, or a flat front-lit look that makes an incredible moment feel lifeless.

In this post, we’ll look at why eyeshine occurs, how you can avoid or eliminate it using off-axis flash setups, and how to remove it in post-processing if it does appear. Most of what follows applies equally to nocturnal birds and mammals.

The best way to reduce eyeshine is to move your flash away from the camera's central axis so that there is an angle between the flash and end. Even a few degrees can significantly reduce eye-shine, and positioning further off axis can eliminate it (and result in more natural lighting)

A flash bracket moves your light source off the camera’s central axis, changing the angle between flash and lens. They are simple and quick to operate with a BeamMount setup - you just point the camera at the subject and shoot. Even a few degrees off-axis can greatly reduce both red-eye and steel-eye, particularly at close range where geometry matters most.  However, the effect diminishes with distance, as the angle between flash and lens narrows and reflections become more pronounced and the lighting still looks quite flat relative to off axis flash.

Positioning your flash off-axis a significant distance left or right from your lens almost always eliminates unwanted eye reflection. The idea is simple: your flash beam and lens should converge at the subject, but diverge just enough that the reflected light doesn’t come straight back.

Angles around 30–45° typically look most natural, though even 10–15° is often enough to eliminate reflections. Less is usually required to eliminate eyeshine. Note that in some circumstances such a wide angle will not be possible (for example  due to occluding vegetation). In these cases eyeshine is still significantly reduced.

If solo, use a BeamMount Pro on a tall tripod or a light stand with a tilt and swivel adapter for your flash. If you have an assistant, mounting the torch with a BeamMount to the flash and asking the assistant to point the torch at the subject is the most foolproof, but of course just getting them to hold the torch and flash will work too.

Correcting red-eye or steel-eye is quick if you know the steps. Generally red-eye is easier to correct, and the use of flash brackets or off camera flash close to the camera will be easier to correct than flash on the camera as the red-eye or steel eye won't be as bright. The steps are the same for both steel-eye and red-eye. This section discusses how to do it photoshop, but similar techniques can be applied using other programs including Lightroom.

1. Select the affected area

Use your favourite selection tool to select the red or pale reflective patch. Expand this selection by ~2 pixels so that the borders are captured.

Conclusion

Working at night can be frustrating without the right equipment and techniques - endless scanning, missed focus, and reflections that ruin otherwise perfect encounters. But mastering light geometry turns those challenges into predictable, solvable problems. Once you understand how eyeshine forms, you can decide whether to use it to find your subject or eliminate it for a clean, lifelike image.

Spinifex Ridges and Tank Hills in Mt Isa

Carpentarian Country

The area northwest of Mt Isa contains one of the remaining populations of Carpentarian Grasswren (Amytornis dorotheae). Much of this habitat has been recently affected by fire. The habitat here was different to Mt Isa itself. The habitat felt harsher: low sandstone ridges, creek depressions burnt spinifex patches, and flies.

The search took around forty-five minutes before the first pair appeared, jumping between two spinifex bushes in a creek depression. I hung around the area for the rest of the day. My initial shots were not great. But they became much less skulking as the sun went down.

Other species shared the same ridges. Highlights from a photographic perspective included Black-throated Treecreeper, Crested Bellbird and Little Woodswallow.  I heard Little Buttonquail as it got dark and I walked back to the car but I opted to have an early night because of a 4am start in Brisbane. Since I had done so well with the Carpentarian Grasswren I decided to retarget the Kalkadoon Grasswren the next morning.

Return to the Isa Hills

The following morning I was back on the same ridge as the previous morning well before dawn. I had considered trying other sites, but decided to go back to the same spot based on the previous success. I arrived early in the morning hoping to test out a prototype BeamMount Pro on spotted nightjar, but could only hear them distantly. Thermal imaging was nearly useless; the rock retained too much warmth overnight to pick out anything.

Normally the stillness of early morning is a great time to hear and locate grasswrens. I didn't hear anything! When the sun cleared the horizon, the slope where I had located came alive, but no grasswrens were to be seen - Rainbow Bee-eaters, Budgerigars and other birds all came to warm themselves in the first rays of sunlight. I worked from a low angle in my ghillie suit. A Brown Falcon swept through suddenly, scattering the budgerigars at close range. I didn't get a good photo.  No Grasswrens this time, but the morning light and birds at close range was great.

South to Lark Quarry and Opalton

By late morning I began the long drive of roughly six hours through towards Lark Quarry and Opalton. The afternoon air was dry and still, perfect for sound recording. In the spinifex at the airstrip near Lark Quarry I found both Rufous-crowned Emu-wren (Stipiturus ruficeps) to be active and vocal. I also encountered other good birds like Bourke's Parrot. The search for Opalton Grasswren (Amytornis rowleyi) was initially fruitless. I did a random walk for a few kilometers through spinifex. I didn't locate any until the sun had just set.

Towards Channel Country

Day three began near Winton with a search for Hall’s Babbler (Pomatostomus halli) south of Winton on the road towards Opalton. The habitat looked right - open mulga with dense shrub patches - but the species refused to show. I walked around a lot searching and photographed Hooded Robin and Spinifex Pigeon and other species. When I returned to the car, a group appeared in the nearby tree, almost as if waiting. Unfortunately the best light had gone, but I was glad to see my last Australian babbler species before heading to Boulia.

Morning Over the Gibber Plains

The final morning broke still and clear and I began the drive back towards Mt Isa. At one point I stopped to photograph an Australian Bustard gobbling locusts. This busted flushed a Gibberbird (Ashbyia lovensis) which was a confiding finale to the trip.

Conclusion

This trip was incredibly productive. With more time I would have loved to travel down to Birdsville and try for Eyrean Grasswren and Grey Grasswren. I also didn't focus on some of the finches and other birds on offer due to success from previous trips and time constraints. I think a week or ten days would have really been ideal. Still, it was a great trip and I would love to go back someday.

The work starts before you pick up a camera. There is no point waiting in a spot which has issues, for example:

Before you choose where to go, it helps to decide what species you want to photograph. Start with the species. Use a field guide to learn what might be possible in your region. Then work out what habitats those species depend on.

Rails and crakes are a good example: if you want to target them, you’ll need wetlands with dense reedbeds, muddy margins, and quiet backwaters. They often feed at the interface between cover and open ground, rarely straying far from cover. Grebes typically require stretches of open water deep enough for diving, but still prefer vegetation nearby for nesting and cover. Dabbling ducks need shallow areas where they can tip up and feed from the bottom, while diving ducks choose deeper pools.  Herons, cormorants, and darters need perches - often prominent logs or branches that give them a vantage point over both prey and predators.

The competitive exclusion principle in ecology provides some useful shortcuts. The idea is that no two species can occupy the same ecological niche indefinitely. This is why wetlands often appear crowded, but there is structure in the way species overlap: coots uproot submerged plants and forage underwater, while moorhens work  along the edges. Crakes and rails may share a reedbed, but one species might work right at the waterline while the other prefers slightly drier areas margins. Recognising these divisions helps predict not just where your target will be, but also what might show up along side it.

By starting with the species you want, then working outward to their habitats and how those habitats change with conditions, you avoid the trap of picking a wetland simply because it looks picturesque. Doing this homework gives you a working map before you step into the water, so when you're in the field, you’re heading straight for the zones with the highest chance of the encounter you wanted.

Once you know your goals and the species and habitats you’re aiming for, the next step is to identify locations that offer them. This is where online records, local knowledge, and field reconnaissance come together.

Resources like eBird, iNaturalist, social media, or even word of mouth are useful starting points. They don’t just show if a species is present — they often indicate when and how often it has been observed. But be aware of a bias: people tend to visit places where interesting birds have already been reported, which leads to more checklists from those sites while other wetlands go underreported. An absence of records doesn’t mean an absence of birds.

To spend long periods in the water without becoming uncomfortable, you need to choose clothing carefully. The best option depends on temperature, depth, and how long you expect to stay in. A few main approaches cover most situations:

• Bathers / swimmers. In warm conditions, the simplest choice is often best. Quick-drying shorts and a rash top provide freedom of movement and UV protection. Avoid cotton, which becomes heavy and clammy when waterlogged.
• Waders. Waders are a practical option for shallow wetlands, keeping you dry and adding protection. Neoprene models insulate in cooler water, and integrated boots are convenient. The limitation is depth: once water overtops them, they flood and quickly become hazardous. Waders are only suitable if you know you won’t need to venture too deep.
• Wetsuits. A wetsuit won’t keep you dry, but it provides insulation by trapping a layer of water against your skin. They’re useful for chest-deep water and prolonged sessions, though less convenient and less breathable than waders.
• Drysuits. Drysuits completely seal you off from the water and are the safest option in very cold conditions. They allow you to wear insulating layers underneath and are the best choice when hypothermia is a real risk, though they are bulkier and more expensive.
• Footwear. Always pair your clothing choice with appropriate footwear. Sturdy water shoes or wader boots protect your feet from sharp objects, rocks, or leeches and add insulation in cooler conditions.

Aside from your choice of clothing it's also worth thinking about insect repellant, hydration, UV protection. and protection from abrasion. Consider long sleeves, a wide-brim hat, and suitable gloves. For concealment, consider camouflage patterns on the parts of your clothing that remain above the waterline. Finally, always plan for after the session. Keep spare clothes and a towel in your car.

Keeping your camera stable at water level is one of the biggest challenges. Every option involves trade-offs in mobility, control, and risk management:

• Handholding  is the simplest method, but also the riskiest. Holding several kilograms of fragile gear while wading leaves you vulnerable to slips, sudden sinks into mud, fatigue, or loss of balance. Even if you stay upright, arms tire quickly and long lenses are difficult to keep steady. Handholding is only realistic for brief encounters in shallow water, and even then it leaves little margin for error.

Generally speaking, you need to make the right camera equipment choice before getting into the water - it's not generally practical to be changing lenses or equipment whilst floating around. As far as camera bodies, lenses and teleconverters the tradeoffs are similar to on land. The method of supporting your camera may also impact your decision in terms of what gear to use - it's easy to support a large prime lens on floating setup but pretty difficult if you're trying to spend an hour in the water handholding.  Match your setup to your method of support and the conditions you expect.

It's worth thinking about rain/splash protection, and making sure you have a charged battery and a big card for lots of photos - it's generally not a good idea to change those things out on the water. It's also worth having a plan to secure essentials like your phone and keys so they don’t get lost or water-damaged. A drybag clipped to your gear is a reliable solution - the HydroBlind includes tether points for this.

Concealment and Movement

At water level, composition changes dramatically. The surface itself becomes part of the image, offering reflections, blurred foregrounds, and soft transitions you can’t get from the bank. Use these elements deliberately rather than treating them as background noise.

When working with reflections, aim for symmetry by keeping the horizon straight and leaving space below the subject. Foreground blur from reeds, ripples, or floating vegetation can add depth, but make sure it frames the bird rather without obscuring it.

Think about movement in the frame. Leave space in front of a swimming bird or one about to take off, so the action doesn’t feel cramped. At the same time, don’t overlook wider shots. Showing a bird in context, framed by reeds, mirrored in calm water, or lit by unusual weather, often tells a stronger story than a tight headshot.