To me… to me… you’ve got another 3ft clearance…

Kori Bustard, originally uploaded by andyskelton-a Blog a day http://andrewskelton.net.

There’s nothing more important than a good backup (did you see what I did there?) and having left my laptop switched on (by mistake) in my rucksack I am resolved to transfer all photos on this machine onto my central server, which after all is what it’s there for. I haven’t lost any data and the machine hasn’t fried but I could easily have fried an egg on it.

I would have preferred better conditions when photographing today’s subject but you can’t control the sun, moon and stars (unless it’s one of those small dioramas) and as the sun slowly waking up moving slowly up from behind the hills of the Masai Mara there was little I could do to get any good strong light on to this magnificent bird. The Kori Bustard is huge, in bird terms, standing up to nearly a meter in height (up to 3ft) and is possibly the worlds heaviest flying bird which is probably why it’s happier on the ground walking everywhere.

I was really pleased to be able to photograph this bird when out on the Savannah in the Masai Mara – it was still early morning as we pulled up along side a number of these birds and it was obvious by the preening and then puffing up of this males plumage that he was getting ready to display to any nearby females… either that or he may have mistaken my camouflage lens as a possible suitor (his eyesight is probably not that good, and there aren’t may opticians out on the Mara). As we watched, he swelled up his chest feathers which he had been cleaning as well as his tail feathers – a real show off this one. The other birds were totally oblivious to his advances or his exhibitionism, more concerned with finding their first meal of the day.

Oh I nearly forgot.. after a month or so of having talked about it in every other breath, I’ve finally been and arranged my photos for the exhibition and the viewing public will be able to see 17 of my photos and pass judgement on them (as long as I don’t hear). I’ve put a short blurb together for each photo as well, which started out sensible (as does my blog) and then descends into lots of inane ramblings (yep, very much like this blog). I’m putting together a new section of this website and will post details there when I’m all done. You’ve waited this long a few more days… week.. isn’t going to hurt!

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