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Inspiring and Supporting Photographers of Australian Birds

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Whistling Kite

Whistling Kite (Image ID 45538)
Photographed byMichael Hamel-Green on Sun 28th Mar, 2021 and uploaded on Wed 31st Mar, 2021 .
Resolution1400x876
Viewed48
ID45538
CommentFlying a kite…it was such a joy as a child to hold onto the string, feel it tug as it catches the wind, steer it higher and higher, watch it climb up and up until the little sail seemed to touch the clouds. But now, well weathered by the years, I still find just as much joy in holding on to a Kite…but with no strings attached. Now the pleasure is in holding it in view through a telephoto lens, following as it glides around me, and then circles in wider and wider sweeps until it disappears over the horizon. Others might hold their kites in view through binoculars, or, if skilled at drawing, sketch the kite from memory, motion (and emotion) recollected in tranquillity. Kites, hawks, eagles…there is something about them that embodies possibility, hope, aspiration. The American Indians saw that in them in one of their chants (recast in many song-forms): “Hene-itch-ee-chi-o/May we fly like eagles, flying so high/Circling the universe on wings of pure light./Hear the wind blowing,/singing through the trees/Crying to the people/to walk the way of peace.” So here is the kite I was ‘holding’ in my lens, a juvenile Whistling Kite in all its fresh plumage, “flying so high…on wings of pure light”, a bird that flies above a storm rather than succumbing to it, whistling to us of hope for a world all too threatened by war, violence, pollution, and the climate emergency.
EquipmentNikonZ7ii Nikon 300mm f4 PF TC1.4 420mm ISO 1000 1/5000th f9 Monopod
LocationWerribee Treatment Plant, Werribee, Victoria
Keywordsjuvenile, in flight
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