Highlights Down Under - Day 14 - Sharp Pointy Lamping

Doms is hard at work typing away behind me to beat me to the issue of this blog.

But as it's still only just after 2am back in the UK I can't see the point in a race - going for quality here!  This is where all the money on my shiny new camera pays off, and I can see just why I wanted it!  Tish did pretty well with my old one, we were all pretty impressed with what it gave last night, but at a max ISO of 1600 when compared to the new one going up to 6000 before it gets too noisy (and I think I can tweak it to 12,500 but that does give pretty poor results, very noisy) I'm afraid mine did win.  Well, it was the main reason for buying it.

So we had a lazy day at home, with a good pool session in the afternoon, and after tea packed up and headed out to Fogg Dam - dark well before we got there.

Daddy got the lamp out, and Tish and I went for some really exciting starters to sort exposure out.

So that was a couple of pissed off cows to start with.

The first good spot was made by Xanthe - eyes in the dark, in a tree off the side.  A nice little brushtail possum.  Sadly the only one of the night - we had hoped for more - but great views.

The dam itself was swarming with with flies and buzzy things (hooray for insect repellent) and the most humungous fruit bats (aka flying foxes, not a chance of catching them at the speed they went) and night herons.

There was an Australian Darter asleep in a tree.  Well, until we came along and disturbed it.  Good night time camoflauge this one.....

Then there were a couple of owls - southern boobooks I'm informed.  Tish got the far more impressive flight shot, but I was quite pleased with these ones.

Then we found a spider in a tree right by the track.  Probably rather boring by day, but in the lamplight pretty scary.

Yes, he was as big as he looks.

Then there were the crocs.  We saw a lot of eyes, and got great views of a couple.  One of them I didn't manage to get a shot of at all, but the other stayed in place for a bit longer, and we both did well with that one.

We were none of us eaten (except by small noshy things with wings), a top evening.  We got home around 10:45, and us adults had a quick beer and some smarties chocolate and a quick look through the photos after getting the small people to bed.

An excellent evening out!