Main Range National Park

Back in July, we visited the Main Range National Park and stopped at Queen Mary Falls (here and here). Since spring has advanced, decided to stop by again and see what is going on. For one thing, the Satin Bower Birds are clearly fatter.

The Buff Banded Rail came out with some parrots when Elizabeth bought some bird seed and scattered it on the ground.

 We also saw the Red Cheeked Parrot, a new bird for us. He certainly is red!  He is sitting on a fountain that is used as large feeder tray for the local birds and he know what to look for.

On the short walk to the Queen Mary Falls, we find a delicate purple flower vining up a tree trunk.

Upstream from the falls, a small eddy in the stream caught my eye. While I thought I would have prefered a slower shutter speed to turn it all to a creamy smooth scene, the shorter one I used give a sense of motion and works very well.

Similarly at the falls, a slightly longer shutter speed blurs the falling water, but doesn't remove all (just most) of the detail in the pool at the bottom.

We walked back to the picnic area and watched for birds for a bit and then loaded up and headed down to Carr Lookout to the drama of the clouds over the hills. I tried several shots including a panorama and the multiple exposure HDR image below. Both are uploaded to flickr.

We stopped by the road to see Dagg Falls. Like the Queen Mary Falls, it was more interesting than our earlier trips because recent rains have filled the stream. Noticeably more noise, more water, and more fun.

Once back down on the flat land again, we stopped by the road to photograph the clouds again. I picked a spot near some water -- Well ok, a really big mud puddle -- and standing on the door jam in the truck, I made a 5 shot HDR. Below is what we get.

The images today are much better than the ones I took in July for several reasons. While I was not able to get close enough to a Superb Fairy Wren to get a photo as before, I was able to get close to the birds we did see and using the D800E, I simply got better images than with the Nikon 1. This was aided also by the fact that it was mostly overcast all day and the uniform light removed the problems of dynamic range. The softer light also made the images of the water falls much better. And, of course, the clouds made for much more interesting landscapes.

You can see these pictures and more on flickr. Enjoy.