Birds.
(One of) the reasons I love bird photography:
For those fleeting moments when I have a beautiful bird in the lens. Just me and the bird in a tunnel of feather and colour. I take in the detail and beauty, admire it all. In these precious seconds I feel an intimacy with all of existence, all of nature.
It is a magnified, hyper-focused sense of wonder.
The Blue-faced Honeyeater, posing on the aptly named Bird of Paradise plant.
The Bush-stone Curlew, with its eerie human-like eye, peculiar and wise.
Eastern Spinebill, first light, poem in flight, claims nectar at will.
The Red-tailed Black Cockatoo, nature's true masterpiece.
The Black-shouldered Kite, master of wind, the world slows around it.
Brahminy Kite, the sharp eye of the clear blue sky.
The Superb Fairy Wren, a small bird of might and gusto.
The Flame Robin, a master's balance of flamboyance and humility.
Rare and electric, an insanity of colour, the Forest Kingfisher.
Galahs in flight, late day riddles of chaos or choreography.
The Eastern Rosella, by design, amidst yellow flowers and smoky grass.
The King Parrot, of curiosity, friendliness and soul-colouring joy.
Kookaburra, poised in the morning blue, still and dramatic.
Little Corellas, in celebration of life's simple joys, exemplary.
The Australian Pelican, posing for pageantry.
The Rainbow Bee-eater, with colour, style, and masquerade eyes.
The Australian Raven, in wisdom, mystery, geometry.
Pigeons, in ode to their thrive lands, the hustle and bustle.
Crimson Rosella, unmissable beauty, the flowers fall around her.
The Rufous Fantail, down the barrel and beckoning.
The Sacred Kingfisher, a jewel in forest teal.
The White-bellied Sea Eagle, up in the big picture, expanded.
The Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo, ever-cheeky, set against a (blurred) backdrop of Camellias.
The Whistling Kite, soaring in smooth circles, effortless and powerful.
The White-eared Honeyeater, working the bark for bugs, on a timeline of its own.
The Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo, soul-stirring singer of country's song.
The Rainbow Lorikeet, colour boom and chestnut bloom, a collaboration.
Black Swans, artistic expressions for canvas lakes.
Flock of cockatoos, shade-black and silhouetted.
The non-native Indian Myna, a bird of new frontiers.
Rainbow Lorikeets, a timid peer into the shape and symmetry of urban jungle.
Australian Pelican, cinematic, sets Kubrick scene for bridge-goers.
Lorikeet and Old Man Banksia, timeless companions, day-to-day colleagues.
Pelicans, doing things that only Pelicans (or Wes Anderson) can do.
Purple Swamphen against a watercolour shore, beckoning: "paint me like a Monet".
Corellas, craning heads to speak of playful innocence, of inner-children.
Life can be a swooping Magpie at times, even for the mighty Wedge-tailed Eagle.
The Magpie, classically evil, light and dark, yin and yang.
Corellas, in community, whether sky grey or sky blue.
The Cassowary, in all its prehistoric glory, has remained behind to humble us.
The Little Wattlebird, perched on the line between solitude and loneliness.
Crested Pigeon, in a full-feathered courtship manoeuvre, a bold reminder to bare one's beauty.
The Azure Kingfisher, painted for a moment, our window to marvel.
The Red-tailed Black Cockatoo, with prop in hand, proclaiming: "Jabba, I'm ready for my closeup".