A collection of stills and video clips of raptors encountered at Hexham Swamp in the Hunter Wetlands National Park, Newcastle AUSTRALIA, in July 2023.
I used my OM-1 & 150-400mm f4.5 TC1.25X lens, an EE-1 dot sight, and a monopod. I also set a trail camera and obtained a few low-resolution images of a Nankeen Kestrel and an Australian Hobby.
The Nankeen Kestrel was a curious one. I saw it up ahead while driving along the Pipeline Road, and parked my car diagonally across the road so I could shoot it through the driver-side window. It was about 60 metres away when I stopped the car. I stayed in the car and the kestrel flew closer and closer, landing on posts or on the road as it came.
The highlight of my week, yielding perhaps the worst photographs!, was the sighting of a Peregrine Falcon. I'm yet to make a decent photograph of a wild peregrine but I always get a buzz out of seeing one.
The video was produced with Lightroom Classic (the Slideshow Module). The short animation videos included were created with Adobe Premiere Pro and then imported into Lightroom to be used from now on as resources in videos like this one.
If you have any questions about my methods, feel free to ask them in the comments.
The soundtrack for this video is 'The Return' composed by Jean Baptiste Bocle and licensed from smartsound.com.