My custom setup : made up of a two man tent and a camo net. This is the birds migrant season and lots of: curlews, redshank, sandpiper, plover….etc

and they gathered here in SG every year ending - onwards till early next year. I’ve observed this area since last year and these, waders, migrant gather at this particular place - it has two ponds with the dike in between and the surrounding eadge of the ponds are thick vegetation and mangrove swamps. The raining season comes at this time too usually the sea water tide will flood the ponds and drain it when low tide. Perfect for the birds to feed..yeah!…..

I notice that when it rain the birds will gather onto the dike. It is here that the birds really express themselves i guess the rain has an affect on them. They play with each other, groom, chase…etc – its difficult for me to get close, not much cover for me and thats where my comes in..yeah! I setup the hide at the position i need for my photography – i want to first get up close and capture the birds natural expression at play also i get a good position of the BG. I want a good play on the – i have the water, land sand, wood and the forest. Greenery that is any trees or whole vegetation. Remembering that these bird are not passerine, i might need to arrange the scenario a bit – by arranging drift wood or broken tree trunks on the ground, to give the birds a little lift, this will expose them to a wider BG. I am shooting from ground level just as the birds are: landing, running, leaping…etc

The camo~hide provide me the position i need to do the above, so setup the hide and left it there for a week before i start my ‘project’. A week, i guess, will provide enough time for the birds and animals to get comfortable with the present of the hide – which it did but i realize later that the surrounding of the hide is open no coverage for me to enter without being spotted…arrrh! So i’ve to ‘leopard crawl’ my way into the hide..lolz it didn’t work the birds spot me long before…lolz

Well next best thing is to wait for the rain..yeah! from my observation: when i am in the hide during the rain and high tide the birds will congregate onto the dike and will later forget that i am in the hide…yippy – again the problem will be the rain, the tide, the time its going to stop raining!…again arrrh!

Still i was able to observe and photo-video them – got some surprises too and sadly its really a surprise that means not picture or video: otters, black capped kingfisher, the largest boar, passerine birds i don’t know the names…lolz ~

Yeah during my time observing the place i notice this lone ‘Heron’ – i am not sure if its the ‘white bellied’ or the ‘greater billed heron’ he is always there and some how we became buddies, thought we didn’t intro personally but hey buddies all the way till now..lolz and surprise! he came right up to my camo~hide and i got some good shots of him, him being so close i can only photograph his head…lolz what a Beautiful Day!

Look at his eyes below….oh  yah! his fleas too..lolz. This picture was taken with the sky as BG – still raining.

This is my first time using a hide in the rain and with all the factors surrounding the project i hope to do better especially the photography and videography – the subject , well thats another thing…just hope for the best yeah.

So the ‘camo~hide’ will be left there till the migrants leave once more and i will continue to better my techniques, observe better – how to better prepare such an event…

to be continue

Thanks for reading ~ Novic at work