Windy Weather Equals Albatross Action

Sydney has been blasted with terrible weather the last week - terrible weather means lots of rain and strong Easterly winds. However Easterly winds are not all bad and Saturday morning I set out to take advantage!
The BIG seabirds live most of their lives on their wings, just hovering along following the winds of the sea ... as stated above those winds have lately been coming from the East pushing those giant albatrosses in towards the coast - in towards Bigma range :-) My prediction was that there should be a good chance of getting some pictures of some seriously big birds, without risking being seasick :-)

Weather was very rough! The combination of huge waves and blasting winds gave terrible camera conditions at the clifftop. Only at the very highest points of the cliff the camera was safe from the spray of saltwater, but these elevated positions meant being totally exposed to the blasting winds, which made it near impossible for me to keep my balance while handling the camera. I was constantly trying to keep the lens clean, but saltwater is poison for a front element! I actually gave up twice - started to walk home - just to hesitate, stop up and realize that it was way to good action to miss and then walked back :-) In the end it took a direct hit of saltwater onto my camera and lens before I decided that it was time to head back home - with 400 photos in the camera I was actually quite happy with the outcome of the day ... which was lucky since the rest of the evening was used cleaning camera, lens and front filter :-\

All in all an amazing day at the coast, with quite a few birds I do not recall having seen before. I still have a stack of raw images that I have not processed yet, but I have uploaded a few jpgs to my Picasa account, which you are welcome to access by pressing the little picture of the gannet down below. I must warn the readers, particular those of you who are not so much into birds (e.g. my grand mums). I have tried hard by adding a few landscape pictures and some panoramas, however, it is hard making an album of birds - that all look like seagulls - very "action packed". It does not help either that the birds look tiny and the pictures are grainy, due to the fact that the "action" took place 200 meters off the coast: So if small seagulls are not your cup of tea, when please wait for my very touristy next blog entry, which will soon be published and contain some "fish and chips"-bonanza from Watson's bay :-)

Pelagic, Long Bay