We're Karen & Nimal and we love to travel & photograph birds & wildlife of Australia.
Nimal has been a birdwatcher since he was a child and enjoys searching for elusive birds to add to his ebird list. Karen is new to bird watching and loves to photograph & video all wildlife. We love seeing birds & wildlife in their natural habitat and we respect all wildlife & their behaviour. No callback, food or setups for us!
We love exploring Victoria in our 4wd staying at airbnbs or camping in our air tent. We also enjoy special birding trips flying interstate if we are keen on seeing something new to add to our Life bird lists.
Our current photography gear: Nimal: Olympus OM DE 1 Mark iii + Olympus 100-400mm Karen: Sony A6700 + Sony 200-600mm & Panasonic G9 + Olympus 12-100mm B-roll footage on GoPro9
Another top-notch video. Hope to be able to head up that way sometime. Just a quick question: do you use the same cameras for shooting the video and taking the photos? If so, how do you decide when to stop filming video and try to get a good shot of the bird. I love bird photography, but whenever I consider shooting video FOMO stops me from diverting away from my primary goal, getting as good a photo as I can.
Thanks! 😀 Yes we do use the same cameras to take photos & video. Usually it depends on the type of bird whether we have enough time to do both (and it depends on the light as video works better in darker environments). Quite a few times though we'll decide which one of us is videoing & the other is taking photos. That helps to prevent missing getting video or a photo if we're both there at the time same focusing on the same birds. In this video, we really didn't get many usable photos as it was just too dark in the rainforest but the video worked so much better. ~ K
Thank you so much. Ever since you posted the first postcard I have been eagerly looking forward to your series from the wet tropics and it hasn't disappointed. Well done as usual.
Nimal and Karen: all of your videos are a joy to watch but this one is fantastic! Will definitely refer back to this as I plan my own birding trip to Queensland in the next couple years. Thanks for sharing all your wonderful adventures around VIC and beyond!
Thank you so much! 😀❤ We definitely recommend staying at least 4 nights around this area. So much to see & there's even more that we missed so it's a place I would definitely go & stay again. As for accommodation, Crater Lakes Rainforest Cottages was superb!! Queensland has so many amazing regions to visit. You'll have fun planning that trip!! ~ K
What a fantastic lot of birds you saw, I’m very envious of the Rifle Birds. I hope you found the Lovely Fairywrens at Julatten it was a highlight for me ☺️
The Riflebirds were amazing!! They were literally everywhere around the cottage. I wish we could say we saw Lovely Fairywrens at Julatten but sadly the only sighting was a quick flit from a bush to a tree before it flew away🤪~ K
The birds were stunning! I had really wanted to see a Catbird and by the end of our trip it was kind of like.... of yeah there's that Catbird again! 🤣 ~ K
Loved the video Karen and Nimal. What a fabulous way to spend 2 weeks. The accomodations looked fun, so many lifers, loved the mammals too. Amazing. The Golden Bowerbird being the highlight for me.
Nimal is still excited about that Golden Bowerbird! I'm so glad that he saw it & not me or we'd still be there! 🤣 The accommodation was superb! More to come on this trip... this was just the beginning! Spoiler alert: we saw sunshine again! 😀 ~ K
Another great video of your adventures. Looks like an AMAZING place to stay with all those Rifle Birds omg !!!! Keep them coming im looking forward to the next one .....
Thanks! We'll start working on the next in the series.... starting tomorrow 🤣(so much to sort through!!). We like the longer format too (so much to put in there!!) 😀 ~ K
Thank you for sharing your visit to Crater lakes, the bird life looks amazing and the photos are wonderful looking forward to the next instalment of your FNQ adventure.
Thanks Wendy! 😀 Next instalment should be a fun one! We saw some great birds in drier areas such as Mount Carbine (great spot!) as well as the rainforest of Kingfisher Park.
i just found your vid. thank you for sharing it. Really lovely photography. I live very close to coogoorah park and it's wonderful how much diversity you found. We get quite a few of those birds in our yard but the cockies have really moved in around us as I think they get fed by a few poeple close by. Your vid inspires me to go down to the park and see if I can find some of the birds you found.
Thank you! I'm so glad that the video has inspired you to get on down to Coogoorah Park (you're lucky to have it so close to home!!). It's a really great park with loads of space & species of birds to see there! 😃 ~ K
Thank you so much! 😀 I think the perfect binoculars for birding are the ones that feel comfortable for you & have the reach that you need at a price you can afford. We are not binocular specialists so wouldn't give advice on which one is best. Nimal does have a fairly new pair. They are Nikon Monarch 8x42 which he likes. He also has an older pair of Nikon Aculon 12x50 but he doesn't use them very much anymore as the new ones are much better (more expensive though). It took him a while to choose the new pair but the Monarchs were recommended by other birders & they've been great so far. Hope that helps! 😀 ~ K
@@naturephotographychallenge Thank you for that advice. I had a brand, now long gone, called Oceanic back in the sixties (10x50), and they had perfect focus and no distortion whatsoever. I find lens coatings don't show true colours and are not as clear.
Then of course there are the heart shaped leaves of the stinging plant that people have killed themselves to get away from the pain. Glad you got to see a Cassowary, I think we saw one right on the same boardwalk.
@@andrewkeir2282 there’s some amazing plants & animals up there!! Glad we didn’t come across that stinging plant!! 😳 The warning signs everywhere are definitely needed!! ~ K
@@jaynapodgorski8561 They are such quick little birds!! 😁 It’s ironic as they really are easy to see but photographing them is really difficult! Finding that tiny little fungi was quite a miracle! It was teeny tiny!!
Lovely video, good editing, remarkable birds and scenery. The couple are enthusiastic and happy to be able to do what most birders want to do-see all these beautiful birds. One criticism-get rid of the music for it competes with the bird song and adds nothing to the adventure.
@@zonabrown9241 it was a bit rough so definitely not for anyone that suffers severe motion sickness! We took medication so we were okay but we were a bit anxious beforehand ~ K
Thanks! Just a fun snippet. There'll be a long form video eventually all about this part of our trip. Those Bustards were amazing & the birds at Mount Carbine were brilliant!! ~ K
Nimal said that everyone was fine on this trip. I think a few people always feel a bit off at some stage during these pelagics (mostly when the boat is staying in one place & bobbing up & down) but it depends on the swell. Nimal takes 2 Travacalm (I think that's how it's spelled) an hour before the trip & he'll take 2 more 4 hours later. The boat will only proceed with these trips if the conditions are safe so they often get cancelled due to bad weather. Nimal's been on 3 pelagics now. The first & last he was fine but the 2nd one (we didn't do a video on that one) he didn't really enjoy that particular trip so it can happen depending on the conditions. ~ K
