Montague Island Monochromes

Montague Island, New South Wales, Australia, 8 to 11 November 2019

Links go to posts with the colour versions of the images (where there may also be more information and context). If an image does not have a link, the preceding one applies. (Click on any image to see it larger).

Pelican in Narooma Harbour.

Montague Island Day One..

Humpback whale disappearing.

Humpback whales, mother and calf.

Seals off a headland.

A seal launching into the sea.

At the lighthouse cottages when the storm hits.

Crested terns courting.

Montague Island Day Two.

Silver gull.

Silver gull chicks.

View from the lighthouse looking south, showing the stones sacred to the Aborigines (the whale, the shark and the tortoise) and also the small lighthouse cemetery.

View of lighthouse cottages from the lighthouse.

The old wharf.

Sea eagle.

Tiny ground flowers.

Old banksia setrrata cone.

Little penguins coming ashore.

Great cormorants on rock.

Montague Island Day Three (Morning).

Seal interactions.

Shell on rock.

Sooty oystercatchers.

Created tern coming in to land.

Montague Island Day Three (Afternoon).

Silver gull and nesting material.

Crested tern with fish.

Silver gull coming in to land.

Crested tern and chick.

Montague Island Day Four.

Contention.

Competing for space.

Welcome swallows.

The lighthouse receding.

Pelican confused by sign.

I’m due to go down to Thredbo for the Thredbo Blues Festival next weekend but because of bushfires in the area I won’t know whether the festival is on until later today or tomorrow. There may or may not be a post on that in a few weeks. Next week though, I expect to resume the account of my travels to Cuba and the Caribbean at Santo Domingo in the Dominican republic.

Montague Island Day Four

Dec29

Montague Island, New South Wales, Australia, 8 to 11 November 2019

This was the last morning and the boat was due to leave around midday. The previous afternoon I had photographed crested terns flying in to the colony. I decided to spend some of my remaining time photographing their interactions on the ground.

There were many eggs but only a few hatched chicks. Parents kept them close to protect them not merely from silver gulls but also from other terns.

On the edge of the colony there is danger from silver terns so this mother tried to move with her chick into the colony.

The terns pack in much closer than silver gulls but they still defend territory so contention arises.

Making a point…

This is where she wants to be but there is a certain amount of opposition.

… including some pinching of the tail….

At least the chick is not being attacked which can happen.

And the mother, though under siege, does her best to protect the chick.

Nearby there was a silver gull hidden under a bush on an egg in the middle of the tern colony. It must have been there before the terns arrived. I didn’t photograph it because the shadow was too deep to show it in context. What was going to happen when it tried to leave was an interesting question.

After a while, she pulled out of the area of contention back more to the edge of the colony.

Her mate is with her here.

She is now protecting the chick from silver gulls as well as other terns.

Nearby, a pair of welcome swallows had made their nest in walls of one of the cottage’s toilets, entering the wall through the ventilation holes.

Just outside the colony, a bit of mating display was going on.

Two’s company….

A last view of the terns.

Now we’re on the boat and the lighthouse and cottages are receding away.

The wharf is down below the lighthouse.

Back in Narooma harbour, this pelican seemed confused by the direction instructions of the sign.

Montague Island Day Three (Afternoon)

Dec22

Montague Island, New South Wales, Australia, 8 to 11 November 2019

Having returned and after lunch, I settled down at a tern colony near the lighthouse to photograph them in flight.

I was mounting my long lens on a gimbal (the mechanical type, not the electronic variety for video) which attaches to your tripod and allows your lens to sit at a point of balance, for easier and quicker responses.

This is the wing of a silver gull. This shot wasn’t intended and it isn’t entirely in focus but I still like it.

A tern coming in to land.

Some distance away, over the sea.

They are small and fast5, making it a challenging exercise.

Head on.

Silver gull with nesting material.

Silver gull coming in to land at a silver gull colony.

Silver gulls were patrolling around the edge of the tern colony. Just below me, a mother tern stood up and left her egg exposed. A silver gull hopped in and took the egg. The mother is protesting and the egg is in the middle here but you may have to click on the image to make it larger to see the egg.

Chicks can also be in danger, so here parents are protecting a chick.

Back to the terns coming in to the colony.

This was the most successful flying tern image. Coming in with fish and completely sharp. Well exposed to retain detail in the black head and eyes white while not losing detail in essential white areas caught by the sun. There is an element of luck in this as there is no room for error and the image on the histogram on the back of the camera shows less than the RAW file captures.

Montague Island Day Three (Morning)

Dec15

Montague Island, New South Wales, Australia, 8 to 11 November 2019

In the morning I went down to the south end of the island again. In the last post, the time exposure of the old jetty included a white rock in the distance with great cormorants sitting on it. This is that rock, through a long telephoto.

They are all facing in the same direction, probably scanning for signs of fish.

I was at the old jetty and this is maybe a post they tied up to.

A bit further south, a fur seal climbs up out of the water.

He is eyeing a place by one of the females but the master of the harem notices him.

… So he backs out and soon slips away into the sea, discretion being the better part of valour.

There is a silver gull on the rocks.

Also a pair of sooty oystercatchers.

I had mainly come to this end of the island to make some more focus bracketing studies. This involves taking many exposures at different points of focus and combining them later to get a greater depth of focus that would be possible in a single exposure. First a landscape exposure from macro to infinity. You may prefer to click on some of these to see the greater detail of a larger version.

Now a few macro images at the same location.

This image is macro in the foreground and the background is the cliffs at the other side of the small bay.

Montague Island Day Two

Dec8

Montague Island, New South Wales, Australia, 8 to 11 November 2019

The lighthouse in the early morning with the sun behind it.

Crested terns.

Crested terns courting.

Silver gull.

Silver gull chicks.

View from the lighthouse, looking over the cottages (where we stayed).

View from the lighthouse looking south, showing the stones sacred to the Aborigines and also the small lighthouse cemetery.

There are two children and a keeper buried there. The children got sick but there was no access to the lighthouse, apart from trying to hail a passing ship. The children died before medical assistance could be occurred. More on the keeper later.

Looking west to an islet of great cormorants.

Looking north. There are two parts to the island, joined by a narrow neck. The northern part is out of bounds due to breeding birds. An artist from our group is sitting at a table at the bottom and there is a colony of terns to his left.

Looking down more closely on the colony of terns.

A view of the lighthouse from the back gate of the cottage we stayed in.

The same tree from the stormy images of the previous post, this time n the calm of daylight.

The cottage we stayed in, behind the tree.

The old wharf, a long exposure of 15 seconds.

Tiny flowers on the ground near the south end of the island.

Banksia cone, banksia serrata or old man banksia.

Banksia serrata cone.

Sea eagle. I only had my macro lens with me; I could have got closer wit my long telephoto.

View of lighthouse and cottages from the south.

There was a time when supplies were unloaded at the old wharf and taken up to the lighthouse using a horse and cart. Part of the route was up the rock below the cottages. The horse didn’t like this and used to run away and hide when the time came.

One day it all went wrong. The horse slipped on the rock incline and the cart came careering down the slope on top of the keeper. His spleen was ruptured and he died some days later, ending up in the lighthouse cemetery..

The path back went through a silver gull rookery. This is at the edge of it.

A silver gull incubating an egg on a rudimentary nest on the ground.

Later, we went down to the new wharf to see the little penguins coming in at night. These are silver gull chicks in the fading light.

Terns against the sunset.

The little penguins are coming ashore.

They climb up surprisingly high to nest.

Then red lights were turned on around the platform where we were standing, to provide light without disturbing the penguins.

There was a stiff wind above us and silver gulls were hanging motionless in the air.

Montague Island Day One

Dec1

Montague Island, New South Wales, Australia, 8 to 11 November 2019

We spent a weekend at Montague Island, off the coast of New South Wales near Narooma, organised by NatureArt Lab, based in Canberra. We also went with them to Sabah and this time it was mainly with artists rather than photographers. I also went there in 1987 when I toured around Australia taking photographs of lighthouses for the book From Dusk Till Dawn.

We needed to drive down from Canberra and be at the wharf for the boat at 11:15 am, so to eliminate the risk of misadventures we drove down from Canberra the night before. Late in the afternoon we discovered Handkerchief Beach, south of Narooma. This is a picture of Montague Island from there (actually properly spelt Montagu but that is a losing battle). We would be staying near the lighthouse in the lighthouse cottages.

The lagoon at Handkerchief Beach.

It appears it gets windy at times.

A nearby pelican next morning as we are waiting to embark.

From the boat, underway but still inside Narooma’s Bar, a cormorant is drying its wings.

Humpback whale going down.

We were lucky to be escorted by a mother and her calf for most of the journey to Montague.

There are many seals on the rocks by the sea.

And we encountered quite a few lounging around in the water.

At some distance, sitting on his favourite rock, is this white-bellied sea eagle, in this case with a full crop. He does not live on the island but flies out every day from the mainland.

The seals are either Australian or New Zealand Fur Seals. The New Zealand Fur Seals are smaller and darker and climb further up on the rocks but they are very similar and I’m not going to try to tell them apart.

Launching into the sea.

The New Zealand Fur Seals have been recently renamed Long-Nosed Fur Seals (in Australia) because people may have thought they were not native to Australia though they live in both places. They were called New Zealand Fur Seals because they were first described in New Zealand and are still called New Zealand Fur Seals in New Zealand. This renaming seems to me like pointlessly kowtowing to ignorance so I will continue to refer to them as New Zealand Fur Seals.

Great Cormorant and Crested Terns, still from the boat.

A colony of Crested Terns, from the road to the Lighthouse.

In the late afternoon, we were hit by a huge storm with high winds.

A little later, walking back from Cottage 1 to Cottage 2 at the back of the cottages, I was blown along by a wind so strong that it was pointless to try to walk against it.

Some of the terns relocated from the more exposed side of the island to the relative calm in the lee of the cottages and the island.

Then an hour and a half later, it was clear and calm. This is a sacred aboriginal initiation site at the end of the island, not accessible to the public. The rocks represent the whale, the shark and the tortoise.

(Trivia note: There are now more than 15,000 images in this blog, not counting the links to nearly 11,000 live music images, and also more than 350,000 words, equivalent to several books).

WBSW1: Cape Hauy

Dec4

7 September 2017, Fortescue Bay and Cape Hauy, Tasmania
Wineglass Bay Sail Walk Day 1

A few weeks earlier, I undertook the Overland Track in Winter with the Tasmanian Walking Company. Now, also with the same company, Jools and I were starting off on the six-day Wineglass Bay Sail Walk. Each day we would go for walks in wild locations on the east coast of Tasmania and then we would sail on a 23-metre (75 foot) ketch to the next location.

Looking back at the beach at Fortescue Bay.

We met at a hotel in Hobart at 7am and were driven through Eaglehawk Neck to Fortescue Bay, on the east cost of the Tasman Peninsula. Here we commenced a four-hour return walk to Cape Hauy.

Banksia Marginata.

There were five of us, plus a guide. Later on the boat we would meet the two skippers (one handing over to the other) and the cook.

Looking north. Maria Island in the distance to the right. We are to be heading in that direction.

Cheverton Rock.

Looking out to the end of the cape with Cheverton Rock in the distance (I had a long lens for the previous shot).

Straight down.

Looking south towards Cape Pillar.

A small stack below the cliffs.

We are walking back by this time.

Here you can see the Tasman Island Lighthouse poking up behind the end of the Cape Pillar peninsula.

In 1987 I photographed Tasman Island Lighthouse from Cape Pillar as part of the From Dusk Till Dawn project. One of those images became the frontispiece of the book (fourth image in this post).

Looking back at Cheverton Rock.

Looking north. The rocks are about four kilometres away. I was told their name but don’t remember.

Rain was threatening but didn’t eventuate.

Coastal wattle in flower.

Now back near the Fortescue Bay beach, some of our party are heading out to the Lady Eugenie, our home for the next five nights.

Jetty Beach and Cloudy Bay

Nov24

2 September 2017, Bruny Island, Tasmania

In the afternoon we visited Jetty Beach. The name refers to the jetty that supplied the lighthouse at Cape Bruny, about five kilometres away.

This is probably part of the 1916 jetty, that replaced the original one from the 1850s.

Next we drove to Cloudy Bay and this is the mouth of Sheepwash Creek, flowing into the bay.

Cloudy Bay.

A little further on, we found surfers enjoying some waves.

Still Cloudy Bay. I’ve walked on past the surfers.

There were also a few black swans around.

Much Later, this is The Neck, a narrow strip of sand the joins the two halves of Bruny Island. Usually you can see penguins at night here but this was closed for an upgrade of the infrastructure.

Bruny Island Lighthouse

Nov22

2 September 2017, Bruny Island, Tasmania

The last time I was in Bruny Island was when I photographed it in 1987 using large format film equipment for the Bicentennial history From Dusk Till Dawn.

I took a similar photography in 1987, using a tripod but also lying on my back on the floor.

Cape Bruny lighthouse commenced service in 1838, the third lighthouse in Tasmania and the fourth in Australia. This followed the nearby wreck of the convict ship George III in 1835, which hit an uncharted rock in D’Entrecasteau Channel and 133 died out of 292.

The light mechanism you see features Chance Brothers turntable and lenses which replaced the original mechanism in 1901 to 1903.

In 1901-03 the light came from kerosene lamps. There were replaced with electric lights in 1959.

The brass vents on the wall under the walkway were to regulate the breeze so that the kerosene lamp operated optimally and did not go out. The turntable would have been driven by a clockwork mechanism such as at Double Island Point (last image). A weight would have slowly descended the tower and then needed to be wound back up.

The original lights in 1838 burned sperm whale oil. This was expensive and each lamp burned 600ml per hour. There were fifteen of these lamps and the light was focused with mirrors rather than lenses.

The original lamps were very fragile and needed to be replaced every three days. There are two of the electric bulbs here just to provide a spare.

Far out on the distant horizon and barely visible to the naked eye is Pedra Branca Rock. This is rock is 250 metres long, 100 metres wide and 60 metres high. In 2003 a scientific team visited here as part of a program to preserve the endemic Pedra Branca skink and conserve the habitat of birds, especially albatrosses. The weather deteriorated so that they could not leave the rock and a freak wave washed away a young oceanographer, Hamish Saunders, who was at the time 45 metres above sea level. His body was never recovered.

Coutts Island, below the lighthouse.

Rocks below the lighthouse, evidently favoured by seabirds.

Looking across D’Entrecasteau Channel to the Tasmanian mainland.

Beach to the north of the lighthouse, near the cottages.

A view from the lighthouse balcony showing the cottages, beach and coastline. Families were permitted after 1878. There then would have been three cottages for three keepers working eight hour shifts.

Another view looking up as I leave the lighthouse.

The original keeper in 1838 had three convict assistants and relations between the keeper and the convicts were very formal.

These days radar and GPS has replaced the need for lighthouses except for small vessels such as fishing boats. The lights are in any case automated and the keepers gone. The light here was replaced by a smaller one further out on the point and the lighthouse has not been turned on since 1996.

Monochromes from Point Hicks

Dec7

Point Hicks, Victoria, Australia, 11 to 15 November 2016

A recent post was from a trip to Point Hicks Lighthouse that I organised for the Canberra Photographic Society. Fourteen of us stayed in the lighthouse cottages for four nights. I had previously visited Point Hicks in 1987 while travelling around Australia photographing lighthouses for the Bicentennial History From Dusk Till Dawn ..

Here are some monochrome conversions, some from images that did not appear in the earlier post….

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