Chris Hail

Photo of a large spider on a web deep in the forest. Its legs span about 8 cm. A woman's hand is visible holding a phone close to the spider, giving a sense of scale.

Thanks! Didn't see any big stick insects, but there was this pretty healthy orb weaver up in the rainforest:

Photo of an Australian bustard with just its head and neck showing through tall grass. It is a tall bird with a long neck, but it is stocky like a turkey, rather than slender like an egret. It has grey feathers on its face and neck, with a cap of dark blue on top of its head. Its eye has a light coloured iris, and its beak is short and robust.

Australian bustard 🪶 in deep grass. Atherton Tablelands, North Queensland
#ausbirds #wildoz

A small yellow and black bird with white spots on the top of the head and wings, perched on a branch with nesting material in beak, above a partially concealed burrow below. Bright yellow throat distinguishes male from female. Snapped Sunshine Coast hinterland, qld

Sharing parental duties.. a stunning male spotted pardalote bringing nesting material to the pair’s burrow nest. Made my Sunday 😊. #wildoz #WeekendBirding

Oh that'll be amazing! Hopefully you do get some good pictures along the way

My usual camera is a Nikon D810, with a Sigma 150-600 zoom lens. I also have a 120-300 f2.8 lens for low light shots in the forest. It's heavy, but it gets the job done. My photos are all handheld, as i almost never bring a tripod.

Yeah, back around Easter. It was a great time, and I'm looking forward to getting back there. Still a few birds left to see

Photo of a goanna - aka lace monitor - from the shoulders up, climbing the trunk of a tree. It is a large lizard, with thin wrinkly skin and a long face. It has bands of black and pale yellow on its lower jaw, as well as on its fingers. It is hugging the tree tightly, with its long claws gripping the bark.

Goanna slowly climbing a tree, Cattana Wetlands
Cairns region, QLD
#ausreptiles #wildoz

An adult little pied cormorant (Microcarbo melanoleucos) is captured in a medium shot, facing slightly right but looking directly at the camera. Its head is tilted slightly, giving it an inquisitive expression. The cormorant's plumage consists of a dark grey cap extending down its neck and dark grey wings, contrasting with its clean white chest and belly. Its most striking features are its bright yellow-orange beak and the matching yellow skin around its eyes, which stand out against its dark eyes. The background is a soft, out-of-focus grey, allowing the bird to be the central focus of the image.

Little Pied Cormorant audition head shot while trying to channel a Cary Grant look.
🧐😎🎬

#birds #birdphotography #nature #wildlife #wildlifephotography #photography #naturephotography #birding #birdwatching #birdwatchers #Canon #R5 #Australia

A small, mostly grass-green bee-eater with a canary-yellow throat separated from buff underparts by a black line across the throat. Singles and pairs occupy grassy savanna and wetland edges. They often perch lower than 1.5 m above the ground, and dart around hunting flying insects, then returning to the same small twig. Calls include a sibilant “s-lip” and other high-pitched notes.

Marking my last full day in Rwanda with this portrait of a Little Bee-eater.

📍Kigali, Rwanda.

#Birds #NaturePhotography 🪶

Photo of four cattle egrets in silhouette, flying in front of soft clouds highlighted orange by the sunset. Their long necks are held tucked to their shoulders in flight, while their legs trail behind.

Eastern cattle egrets 🪶 commuting back to the roost after a long day of eating bugs in the fields.
Daintree River, QLD
#ausbirds #wildoz

Seabird with black plumage, red bill & circle round eye, reddish legs & feet. It is taking a step on a rock platform beside the windblown sea. Feathers are ruffled.

Balance is a breeze.

Sooty oystercatcher at Sandon Point this afternoon. 🪶

Check out our journal #australianmammalogy - first observation of grey-headed flying foxes roosting in western New South Wales (Mo et al, 2025) - nearly 300km from nearest known roost! 📸 Andrew Mercer #wildoz #ausmammals @csiropublishing.bsky.social

Could be! But this one seemed like it was just browsing. The lorikeets were raising a huge racket so everyone knew about the goshawk

Photo of a grey goshawk in flight above about 20 lorikeets in a cloudy sky. The hawk is facing toward the camera, with its wings spread wide and its tail tilted. The lorikeets are all wheeling the same direction, so the undersides of their wings are visible. They have a blaze of yellow, with red and orange on their bellies. As they are far away in this photo, their more vbrant colours are difficult to discern.

From a great distance, i got this quick view of a grey goshawk 🪶 being mobbed by a mixed flock of lorikeets (mostly rainbow, but there are two scaly-breasted in this shot).
Hardings Paddock, Ipswich region, QLD
#ausbirds #ozwildlife

Easter Spinebill

Meeting my new neighbours.
An eastern spinebill visited today. These little energetic birds can hover in mid-air while sipping nectar from flowers, just like a hummingbird.

#nature #birds #aussieBirds #naturePhotography #wildBirds #australia #spinebill #nikon

Spotted Pardalote (Pardalotus punctatus)

Spotted Pardalote from Capertee Valley, NSW in mid-June. Widespread and fairly common in healthy forest.

#birdphotography #wildlifephotography #birding #birders #auswildlife #australianwildlife #ausbirds #australianbirds #birds #canon

A vertical , textured oil painting of an Australian gum tree forest. Beneath the gum tree in the foreground, are native ferns.

Australian gum tree forest painting - Sunlit Clearing 🍃🌿🍃🌿
jan-matson.pixels.com/featured/aus...
Textured palette knife oil painting of an Australian gum tree forest. Inspired by the soft hues of the Australian bush.

#LandscapePainting #AustralianLandscapeArt #NatureArt #JanMatsonArt

It was so loud! This looked to be a subadult acting like a juvenile

Close up photo of a sulphur-crested cockatoo with its beak wide open and its crest flattened back. It is a large white parrot with a black beak, a pale yellow crest on its head, and white eyes with large black pupils that give it a somewhat toy-like appearance.

A hungry sulphur-crested cockatoo screaming for attention.
Cairns, Queensland 🪶
#ausbirds #ozwildlife

Photo of a male scarlet honeyeater perched on a branch. He is a small bird with a thin, curved beak. His feathers are mottled light and dark grey, with splashes of saturated red around his head and face. He has the confident but awkward look of a teenager eager to appear grown up.

Scarlet honeyeater (myzomela) just coming in to his adult plumage. When it's all in, he'll be bright red all over his head and throat with a handsome black jacket and grey belly. 🪶
Hardings Paddock, Ipswich region QLD
#ausbirds #ozwildlife

They really are. Definitely one of my favourite birds around here!

Thanks! They're one of my favourites, but they stay in the shadows a lot, so it's always nice to get a shot of one in good light

Photo of a pale-headed rosella perched on a branch. It is a medium sized parrot, with a long tail and a rather stout beak. Its dominant colour is a yellowish off-white, with blue on its wings and red under the tail. On its back is a pattern of yellow with black spots.

Pale-headed rosella 🪶 Sherwood Arboretum, Brisbane QLD
#ausbirds #ozwildlife

Photo of a black-shouldered kite in flight just in front of a decayed branch on a dead tree. It is a small white falcon-type bird, with its wings extended and its feet untucked. It has dark patches under its light grey wings, while the rear of its feathers are bright white.

Black-shouldered kite approaching a perch. Ipswich region, QLD
#ausbirds #wildoz

A large parrot with a rose-pink head, neck, and underparts and a paler pink crown, raised in this photograph.

Galah Portrait

With his crest raised like this he reminds me of certain eighteenth century paintings of women, such as the one of Marie Antoinette by Joseph Ducreux Poster.

Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia

#Australia #birds #WildOz #ozbirds #nature #portrait #cockatoos #parrots

That's a great recording! That was at least 8 bird calls in 30 seconds, and that currawong impression at the end is a dead ringer

The New Zealand Fantail/pīwakawaka, a delight around suburban gardens as it dashes about catching insects.

The New Zealand Fantail/pīwakawaka, a delight around suburban gardens as it dashes about catching insects. #nz #fantail #birds #wildlife #photography #PhotographersOfBluesky #auckland #kumeu

Thanks! This might be my favourite ever shot of one of these little characters

Photo of a willie wagtail perched on a stalk of grass. It is a small black bird with its tail feathers held high and its wings folded. It has a white underside and a line of white over its eye. It is not related to true wagtails, but is a fantail that behaves like a wagtail, swinging its tail back and forth while it hops around on the ground looking for insects to eat.

Always showing the skeptical eyebrows - Portrait of a willie wagtail, Cairns QLD
#ausbirds #wildoz

Photo of a squatter pigeon standing in short grass. It is a brown pigeon with a white breast and hints of purple and green iridescence on its wing. It has a striking pattern of black and white on its cheeks, and its eye is surrounded by bright orange.

Squatter pigeon, far north Queensland
#birds #wildoz