Bird Watching: Show Us Your Favorite Shot's (3) from 2008, 1 by kennedyh

kennedyh wrote:
Here is my second favourite for 2008. The crakes and rails are very secretive birds, and to my surprise I had found both Baillons Crake and the Buff-banded Rail in Mathison Park and got photos of both of them. Just across the road from the park is a small elongated pond and in February it was drying out so it had a muddy fringe with rushes nearby. It looked a good place for crakes and/or rails, so I decided to stake it out one morning. I went down soon after sunrise at 7.00 am and sat down among the sedges on the bank of the pond, with the sun behind me giving perfect light conditions. I had a book with me and read on and off while keeping a close watch over the pond. After 20 minutes, my idea was justified, as a Buff-banded Rail flew across the pond, landed on the muddy edge and made its way quickly past me and disappeared at the end of the pond. I had good photos already, but it at least gave me hope that other crakes or rails could use the same spot. I sat there for another hour, and about 8.20 am another smaller bird flew across the pond to land on the mud and started feeding there. I was amazed to find it was a Lewin's Rail - Dryolimnas_pectoralis, a bird I had only ever seen in the wild once before and that was in Tasmania 20 years or more earlier. I had never had the chance to photograph it. The bird was very cooperative, feeding on the mud and walking up and down just across the pond from my position. I took some 25 pictures of it and many were very pleasing. here is one of my favourites.
Ken