Sunday, 22 March is International Seal Day. A day to raise awareness of the importance of protecting seals and their environments. The need for this awareness is readily apparent every time I visit Narooma. The fur seals there are an integral part of the locality, and it would be impossible to think of Narooma without seals. Tourists come to Narooma just to swim with seals at Montague Island on the authorised tourist excursions to the island, which is seven kilometres off-shore from the town. Meanwhile, at the entrance to the inlet, there are always people with phone cameras in hand delighting in being able to see wild seals close up on the southern breakwater. In addition, around the inlet itself, at the various boat ramps with fish-washing spots, seals have learnt that they can get a free feed from returning anglers, so individual seals will often appear when they see a boat around. Indeed, at the North Bar Beach boat ramp there are often seals that lounge around on the grass or the jetty, enjoying the warmth while waiting for boats. They are completely wild but tolerant of humans moving around them, and that is one of them in the photo accompanying this. The joy on people’s faces when they see a seal close up is unmistakable. It is also not uncommon for seals to swim inside the netted enclosure at North Bar Beach, normally when there are not too many people around. It is a tribute to the local community that the seals feel safe at Narooma around humans because it adds a dimension to Narooma that other towns along the South Coast of NSW don’t have without a resident seal colony. Unfortunately, seals are not safe everywhere, even in Australia, where the commercial salmon farms in Tasmania have killed seals that were naturally trying to have an easy meal by eating penned-up salmon. Hopefully, seals will continue to prosper in the waters around Australia and future generations will be able to enjoy close encounters with these wonderful animals.

I hadn’t been to Callum Brae Nature Reserve for a while but that Sunday morning in mid-March was just so nice that I had to get out photographing. I like Callum Brae because it is less than 10 minutes drive from my house but there are no houses around it, so it is normally very quiet. I always seem to find something to take my interest and that morning I found a Grey Butcherbird that let me approach reasonably close. It had just eaten a juicy dragonfly and was probably searching for its next meal. My Mum really loves this species because she would often hear its call in the backyard, which she always found relaxing. Just that memory means this bird always has a special place for me. I hope that you like the photos below.

Steph Skinner is a Canberra-based gravel cyclist who has only been riding since 2019 but has already completed the Hunt 1000 from Melbourne to Canberra and the 4300km Tour Divide in the US. This year she is training for the legendary 1900km Silk Road Mountain Race in Kyrgyzstan that has over 30 000m of climbing. They are impressive achievements for someone who only started cycling in 2019 for the daily commute to avoid paying for parking. I felt very fortunate that she agreed to let me take a series of environmental portrait shots of her.

ACT Wildlife is an organisation that looks after sick, injured and orphaned wildlife. I had an opportunity to meet some of their wonderful volunteers last year when I was doing an assignment for my photography course at CIT. I had to take off-camera flash portraits of people, and I wanted to try to incorporate wildlife into the assignment. One of the groups that bent over backwards to help me was ACT Wildlife. They were very busy at that time of year with orphaned baby wildlife but a number of their incredible volunteers literally opened their homes to help me out. Meeting the volunteers was a wonderful and eye-opening experience. A number of the volunteers had created significant pens and other enclosures in their backyards for the recovering wildlife. It is not easy building a tunnel system that will keep wombats in your backyard. 

The Emus of Potato Point are local celebrities, even if they are imported celebrities. They are actually from Western Australia and were brought to the region by the late Trevor Kennedy, a Sydney business identity who, along with his wife, owned Horse Island, which is located in the Tuross River estuary, and has a stunning mansion on it. Unfortunately for him, his prized garden pets soon realised that they could easily swim across the shallow water surrounding the island and made it to Potato Point where they are thriving. Only at the start of February, I was reminded of the Emus and so in mid-February I went to try to find them, with the intent to take some photos of these famous birds. I hope that you like the photographs below.

The start of 2026 seemed like a good time to review my portfolio. The selection is heavy with Australian Pelicans, which probably shows my fascination for this bird. Creating this portfolio brought back a lot of good memories. One image goes back to 2021, and is still one of my favourites, while most of the others are from 2025 and even January this year. After assembling the selection, I noticed that I took the majority of the shots around Narooma and the south coast of NSW. I also realised that the majority also feature water, or were taken near the water, which probably reflects where I have spent most of my time photographing.

In early January, I was on the sandflats at Narooma at low tide one morning. I had been having a wonderful start to the day photographing birds, as well as a number of other creatures. I had already photographed a group of Australia Pelicans (Pelecanus conspicillatus) that were standing at the edge of the sandflats near the boating channel preening themselves. Sometime later, I was walking back to the shore when two national parks' helicopters took off from the north side of the inlet - I think that they were monitoring the bush fires much further inland. The noise of the helicopters disturbed the group of pelicans, which then started to launch into the air. The birds were just trying to get away from the noise of the ascending helicopters so the pelicans were flying low, almost skimming across the inlet. They were backlit by the rising sun, giving them almost a rim light effect, while also lighting their wings and bills. Because of how low they were, there was also a lovely reflection on the shallow water of the ebbing tide that was still barely covering the sandflats.

Little Pied Cormorants (Microcarbo melanoleucos) are a common bird around Narooma, and most of coastal Australia. They are adept swimmers, often chasing schools of small fish in very shallow water to obtain a feed or taking invertebrates from the bottom. When they want to move to a new area they easily take-off from the water, initially flapping their wings to get their bodies out of their water, then almost jumping across the water with their webbed feet to help get them airborne. This particular cormorant in the photo was flying over the sandflats at Narooma while I was photographing there in January. It was only when I was processing the photographs that I noticed that in the series I took as it approached me that the bird’s head was turned down on one side, with its eye appearing to be looking at me. There was probably some other reason for the bird to have its head like this, but it did appear as if it was carefully considering me.

Lace Monitors (Varanus varius) are Australia’s second largest lizard species with individuals growing up to two metres in length. Despite their size, they are very good climbers, able to scale vertical trees thanks to their sharp claws. Beyond those claws, scientists have discovered that Lace Monitors, along with other monitors, actually have venom, but it is unlikely to kill a human, although it will lead to local swelling and pain. Lace Monitors are close relatives of Indonesia’s famous Komodo Dragons, with both species having evolved from a common ancestor over 10 million years ago. I had been keeping an eye out for this lizard and one morning in January I found it when I was driving along a dirt back road at Narooma. The monitor was sunning itself on the dirt road when I drove along. After I saw it, I slowed the car down and pulled off to the opposite side of the road. I took a few shots from the car window while the lizard stayed on the road looking at me. I was not in a great spot for lighting so I left the car and moved forward of the lizard. My movement made the lizard head slowly for the bush, where it stopped again to look at me. It was probably over a metre, so not fully grown, and not too sure about humans. It stayed on the edge of the bush for a little while, allowing me to move to the better lit side of the lizard and to to get down to its eye level. I was really happy with the encounter, and I stayed put for a little while just admiring this legendary lizard.

Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos (Zanda funerea) are stunning birds with a simple but wonderful colour pattern. The black and yellow go really well, especially the tail feathers and the yellow highlights on the underside of the bird. I am still trying to take that iconic photograph of one with its tail and wings fully extended, showing off its colours, particularly when the lighting is good. Interestingly, their black, austere plumage led to their latin name, based on funeral, and one of their common names is the Funeral Cockatoo. These birds are regulars at Narooma, either chewing seed pods or using their strong beaks to tear into branches looking for boring grubs.

Sooty Oystercatchers (Haematopus fuliginosus) generally inhabit rocky shores and, as this photo shows, they are not put off by waves. On this day in January, the tide was rising and the waves were washing over the rocks the bird was on. I took this photo at 1080 Beach, a quiet area just south of Narooma, where some of this species tend to always be. Interestingly, a study from 2011 showed that male Sooty Oystercatchers tended to eat hard skin prey like sea urchins, seashells, etc. While females looked for soft skin animals like bluebottles, fish, etc.

This Red-bellied Black Snake (Pseudechis porphyriacus) was probably a juvenile because it was only about 40-50cm long. It was warming itself on a patch of dirt in Narooma when I noticed it one morning in January. I thought that the snake was very calm in my presence, allowing me to get close to it. However, just when I was thinking about changing my lens to get a wider shot, the snake abruptly turned around and headed down a hole. Despite the snake departing, I was happy to have at least taken some photographs because these reptiles seem to be very timid. I have seen a few of them around and normally, as soon as they detect me they go. As an example, a few days later, I was crossing a patch of grass, returning from a swim, so I didn’t have my camera, when I saw an adult one moving in my general direction. I stopped to see how close it would approach but it also stopped. It was about three meters from me and when I took a step forward, its upper body looped into the air away from me, before the snake made off quickly.

There is a regular group of New Holland Honeyeaters (Phylidonyris novaehollandiae) around our place in Narooma. They can be very territorial and chase away other species of honeyeaters, especially the Eastern Spinebills. Often, when I am in the backyard, all I hear is a whir of wings and a New Holland Honeyeater is flying past me chasing another bird or on some other errand that brings it close to me head. I really enjoy having these colourful birds around. One day in early January, I was able to capture this image of one of them as it launched off a fence. It has its tongue out, that is the straight object protruding from the bird’s beak. Honeyeaters have a tongue that is covered in delicate filaments that help it gather pollen and nectar. They are also great pollinators, normally with a good dusting of pollen on their head that they will take to the next plant. They also eat little invertebrates like insects, sometimes even taking them in the air.

I normally find it difficult to approach near to Great Cormorants (Phalacrocorax carbo), they tend to fly off. However, I found this one at Narooma that was between a seawall on the left of the photo and a moored boat, out of frame on the right. When I stepped onto the narrow shoreline, the bird regarded me briefly but stayed put. It even relaxed again and did not mind my close proximity to it. I was then able to position my camera low to shoot across the top of the water, an effect I really like. This is Australia’s largest cormorant species and one of the largest in the world. It also the most widely distributed cormorant species in the world, being found on most continents except Antartica. It is at home in both fresh and salt water, making it a very adaptable bird.

One January morning out kayaking on Wagonga Inlet in Narooma I saw two Great Egrets (Ardea alba) in the shallow water near the southern shore line. What made them stand out was the way the early morning sun was catching their bright white plumage. They were at the point on one side of a small bay where the early morning sun’s rays were shining through. However, the land on either side of the bay was still causing a shadow on the water because the sun was still low. I paddled the kayak close to the southern shore into the shadow without scaring the birds. One of them was facing towards the sun and I waited for a time when its head was angled nicely to be lit completely by the sun before I pressed the shutter. I really liked the light on the bird and even the way some light was reflecting off the water. The Great Egret can be found throughout most of the world, except for the very dry areas. It is Australia’s largest egret species and very common.

The Bell Miner or Bellbird (Manorina melanophrys) is a colonial honeyeater that tends to feed in tree canopies and is very territorial. These birds exist in groups that occupy an area and defend it aggressively against other birds. Although they are honeyeaters they mostly eat insects. They also like eating the sweet secretions of psyllids, small insects that feed on eucalyptus leaves. Colonies of Bell Miners will protect psyllids from other birds, potentially allowing these insects to exist in greater numbers, which may even impact the overall health of the forest - leading to what is termed Bellbird assisted dieback or BAD. Bell Miners are famous for their persistent bell-like ‘tink’ call, hence why they are known as Bellbirds. This call can be rather soothing, sounding a like a little bell, being struck regularly. Although the photo below of the bird in mid-call seems to jar with that peaceful image, the bird looks more like it is screeching. These miners were part of a group that have a territory in a forest reserve in North Narooma, making for a pleasant walk through their territory to hear the regular bell-call.

A summer break in Narooma was the perfect time and place to read this wonderfull book about the oyster. The focus of the book is about Australia, covering all aspects of the oyster, from its natural history to how is the best way to consume it. The book is also the tale of three species of oysters, the Sydney Rock Oyster, the Pacific Oyster and the Southern Mud or Australian Native Oyster. If the last oyster type is not one that is well recognised it is probably because it is now locally extinct across much of its natural range.

The Australian Magpie is an iconic Australian bird with an iconic call, which most Australians would easily recognise. It is a call often associated with the morning when magpies are reminding other members of the species of their territory. In December, I was out one morning and looking for magpies to photograph portraits of when I came across a group of three. Being in the suburbs they were comfortable with humans being close. I was therefore able to approach them easily for the shot that I wanted. While I was photographing one bird, the group started to chortle. Luckily, I was able to catch this individual with its mouth open showing its spiky papillae on the underside of the top beak, likely used to help direct food down the bird’s throat.

Little Correllas (Cacatua sanguinea) are small parrots that resemble small Sulphur-crested Cockatoos, and can sometimes be found in flocks of those birds, although there call is different. Indeed every time I hear their almost plaintive call, I think of the line from John Williamson’s song, Sail the Nullarbor - “…a pair of white corellas singing out of tune.” However, it is easy to like these birds because they are so playful.

I was heading back to the car after walking around Tharwa Sandwash when a darkish brown bird shot out from the slope leading down to the Murrumbidgee River. It flew south, parallel to the river, and I wasn’t able to identify it. I was going to chalk the sighting up to the one that got away but I thought that I would just drive down the road, in the direction that the bird flew, to the actual sandwash, in case the bird had landed along the way. After driving a short distance I was rewarded with a Nankeen Kestrel circling as it hunted. A second kestrel appeared but I knew they won’t the bird that I had seen. The kestrels then started swooping down, adopting the wings-in tuck used for accelerating towards prey, yet they were pulling up, not seizing prey. They did it a few times, towards a tree, but didn’t seem to be hunting. I wondered what they were swooping in the tree and then I noticed a Brown Falcon (Falco berigora) perched motionlessly on a branch. When I approached the tree, the falcon flew off but quickly found a new tree to perch in. It seemed calmer there, allowing me to approach it. After a while it took off, but circling as it gained height and passed over me several times. On the first pass, I was able to take the above image with the sun back-lighting its extended wings.