I am fortunate enough to live in an area of Sri Lanka which is surprisingly rich with wildlife for a metropolitan city. Today while I was just relaxing on my balcony as I sometimes do, I saw at least 5 different species of birds fly past me in the same minute and I decided that it might be a good idea to get my camera out and take a few pictures of the birds.

Unfortunately, my bright idea did not immediately come to fruition as when I brought my camera out, I saw to my horror that the battery was dead, so instead of being able to take pictures of a vast multitude of bird species, I had to settle for just two different species as by the time there was enough charge it was late in the evening and most of the birds which I had seen during the evening had decided to fly away.

The first picture which I took was of a brown-headed barbet, a common sighting in my garden. It had flown onto a singular branch in the open and was a majestic sight however by the time I got the battery in my camera it had flown into a slightly dense thicket but I still managed to get a decent picture.

The second and final species of bird which I decided to take a picture of was the Brahminy Kite. This bird is extremely common in Sri Lanka however I decided to take a picture of it as the bird which I saw was fairly large. I first took a few pictures of it flying however as I was below the bird and it was fairly sunny the picture which I took was more like a silhouette. I decided that I would wait until it decided to rest in a tree which turned out to be a good decision. It landed on a tree quite far away which meant that I had to change the lens of the camera and I for sure thought that while I was doing this the kite would fly away as my luck had been quite bad throughout the day, but for once the fates weren’t against me and I managed to take some nice pictures of the bird.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Learning Outcomes:

Identify your own strengths and develop areas for personal growth: Today I found out that one of my strengths was using my steady hands to take unblurry and focused photos. One area which I developed for personal growth was using a long range lense as I had never used one before, however today I decided to use one for the pictures of the Brahminy Kite and I feel like I have improved on this aspect of photography.