Jennifer, a friend, who lives near the Boat Harbour on the Cooks River, had taken a nice video of the resident Tawny Frogmouths perched near her house. I thought a visit to the Boat Harbour during the late afternoon could be nice for exercise and also to watch the Tawny Frogmouth as they awoke from their daily slumber.
I set off in the later afternoon, and walked down to the river and then proceeded upstream to near Younger Avenue. I soon spotted the roosting Tawny Frogmouths there –
I then walked upstream and crossed over.
At the Boat Harbour, the Tawny Frogmouth pair where in a good position.
I arrived a little after 5 pm. Sunset was about 5:19. At about 5:25 pm the birds started to move. They stretched their wings and moved about bit.
At 5:28 pm, one of them flew off.
The second flew off shortly after.
This was very interesting to watch. Both birds had been totally silent when they flew.
Photography in the low light was challenging. I started using a 100-400 mm lens with an aperture of f5.6 at the long end. This had required an ISO of 104,200. I then swapped to a much shorter prime lens – a 135 mm f 1.8 lens. This allowed in a lot more light and I then had to crop the photos.