The December 2019 Newsletter is now available for members to download, via the Resources - Libraries & Documents page.  The complete newsletter, and all articles as individual files, are available.

On the Libraries and Documents page (from the link above), click on the folder name 'Newsletters', then click on the folder name '2019', and finally click on the folder name 'December'.  Note that you need to click on the text; clicking on the folder icon will not work (although we would really like it to!).  You must be logged in to the website to access this newsletter and/or its articles. If you are not logged in, you will only see newsletters which are more than two years old.  There is a log-in module on the Libraries and Documents page.  If you are currently logged in to the website you can go directly to this newsletter by clicking here.

Enjoy this newsletter.

A new version of BirdLife Australia's Working List of Australian Birds (BWL) has been released, and the species list used on this site has been updated to this version.  There are a number of changes, summarised here, and shown in detail on see the Resources-Taxonomic Changes page.  During this update, species names for existing images have been automatically updated where possible.

Twelve new species, all vagrants, have been added to the list.  They are Zoe's Imperial-Pigeon, Orange-fronted Fruit-dove, Silver-backed Needletail, Common Swift, Indian Cuckoo, Slaty-breasted Rail, Lesser Moorhen, Band-rumped Storm-Petrel, Temminck's Stint, Crow-billed Drongo, Kamchatka Leaf-warbler, and Tree Pipit.  The Species selection section of the Submit Photo page now identifies any species which is vagrant to Australia with a (V) suffix after the name.

Twenty-three species have had their common name changed.  These are:

• Red-bellied Pitta is now Papuan Pitta
• Cicadabird is now Common Cicadabird
• Frilled Monarch is now Frill-necked Monarch
• Great Reed-Warbler is now Oriental Reed-Warbler
• Yellow Wagtail is now Eastern Yellow Wagtail
• Northern Mallard is now Mallard
• Red Collared-Dove is now Red Turtle-Dove
• Pied Imperial-Pigeon is now Pied Imperial Pigeon
• Banded Fruit-Dove is now Black-banded Fruit-Dove
• Pied Cormorant is now Great Pied Cormorant
• Ringed Plover is now Common Ringed Plover
• Eastern Curlew is now Far Eastern Curlew
• Grey Phalarope is now Red Phalarope
• Common Noddy is now Brown Noddy
• Crested Tern is now Greater Crested Tern
• New Zealand Boobook is now Tasman Morepork
• Christmas Island Hawk-Owl is now Christmas Island Boobook
• Dollarbird is now Oriental Dollarbird
• Blue Bonnet is now Bluebonnet
• Spotted Catbird is now Black-eared Catbird
• Mangrove Grey Fantail is now Mangrove Fantail
• Black-billed Magpie is now Eurasian Magpie
• Yellow White-eye is now Australian Yellow White-eye

These species names have all been changed in all existing images during the update; no further action is required.

Forty species have had their scientific name changed.  For details of these, please see the Resources-Taxonomic Changes page.

Seventeen species have been split.  These are:

• Intermediate Egret has been split to Intermediate Egret and Plumed Egret.  The species seen in Australia is now known as Plumed Egret, and all existing images of Intermediate Egret have been automatically updated.  The split Intermediate Egret is a vagrant to Australia, and is therefore likely to be rarely seen and/or photographed here.
• Blue-faced Honeyeater has been split to Blue-faced Honeyeater and White-quilled Honeyeater
• White-naped Honeyeater has been split to White-naped Honeyeater and Gilbert's Honeyeater
• Black-chinned Honeyeater has been split to Black-chinned Honeyeater and Golden-backed Honeyeater
• White-lined Honeyeater has been split to White-lined Honeyeater and Kimberley Honeyeater
• Rufous Fieldwren has been split to Rufous Fieldwren and Western Fieldwren
• Chestnut-breasted Quail-thrush has been split to Chestnut-breasted Quail-thrush and Western Quail-thrush
• Cinnamon Quail-thrush has been split to Cinnamon Quail-thrush and Nullarbor Quail-thrush
• Crested Shrike-tit has been split to Northern Shrike-tit, Western Shrike-tit and Eastern Shrike-tit
• Grey Whistler has been split to Grey-headed Whistler and Brown Whistler
• Grey Butcherbird has been split to Grey Butcherbird and Silver-backed Butcherbird
• Rufous Fantail has been split to Rufous Fantail and Arafura Fantail
• Grey Fantail has been split to Grey Fantail and New Zealand Fantail
• Restless Flycatcher has been split to Restless Flycatcher and Paperbark Flycatcher
• Scarlet Robin has been split to Scarlet Robin and Norfolk Island Robin
• Lemon-bellied Flycatcher has been split to Lemon-bellied Flycatcher and Kimberley Flycatcher
• Crimson Finch has been split to Black-bellied Crimson Finch and White-bellied Crimson Finch

Existing images of the split species are now identified as a "complex".  You may amend the identification of any such images via the Photo Gallery-My Photos page; over time, the site moderators will also amend these identifications where possible from the image and location data.  Assignment of the split species to the new species will often be easy, as many of the split species occur in separate locations.

Member voting for the Pairs competition, which closed for entries on 4^th November and for voting on 4^th December, has been analysed and the results for the top five images in each category are listed here.  The Winner is the image which received the most votes; and we also show the next four highest placed images, rating them as Highly Commended if they received at least 90% of the votes for the winning image, and Commended for scores less than that.

Advanced Level – Pairs

This category attracted 50 entries, from 17 photographers. 34 members voted, with the following result:

• Winner - Mulga Parrot, by Bill Harding (Image ID 36593)
• Highly Commended - Mulga Parrot, by Bill Harding (Image ID 36538)
• Highly Commended - Red-necked Avocet, by Tim Van Leeuwen (Image ID 36574)
• Commended - White-winged Fairy-wren, by Keith Wilcox (Image ID 36870)
• Commended - Great Crested Grebe, by Jason Moore (Image ID 36873)

Intermediate Level – Pairs

This category attracted 77 entries, from 29 photographers. 33 members voted, with the following result:

• Winner - Barn Owl, by Linda Joseph (Image ID 36767)
• Commended - Australasian Gannet, by Con Duyvestyn (Image ID 36862)
• Commended - Variegated Fairy-wren, by Barry Deacon (Image ID 36596)
• Commended - Major Mitchell's Cockatoo, by Michael Schmid (Image ID 36762)
• Commended - Tawny Frogmouth, by Michael Schmid (Image ID 36619)

Entry Level – Pairs

This category attracted 40 entries, from 16 photographers. 30 members voted, with the following result:

• Winner - Leaden Flycatcher, by Mary Wheeler (Image ID 36849)
• Commended - Zebra Finch, by Mary Wheeler (Image ID 36823)
• Commended - White-browed Woodswallow, by Graham Gall (Image ID 37073)
• Commended - Pink-eared Duck, by Alan Burdett (Image ID 36710)
• Commended - Brown Falcon, by Jennifer Carr (Image ID 36698)

Congratulations to all these photographers for their quality images

Winning and shorlisted entries in the 2019 Birdlife Australia Photography Awards have been announced, and are available on the competition website.  Quite a few BLP members' entries were among the shortlisted and winning entries, highlighting the great talent we have in our group. Congratulations to all!

The competition was even bigger than 2018, with about 4,100 entries received.  The BLP committee has agreed to donate $4,000 from the competition funds to Birdlife Australia's Regent Honeyeater program, in support of 2019's special theme of Honeyeaters.

A big thank you to all members who supported the competition, and look out for an even better competition in 2020.  The special theme for 2020, Fairy-wrens, Emu-wrens and Grasswrens, has already been announced so you can get to the task of getting some suitable entries.

Our 2020 Photo Competitions for BirdLife Photography members will have the following themes:

1. Best of 2019.  Up to four of your best bird shots taken during 2019.
2. Finches and Chats.  Finches include all the birds within the family Weaver Finches (Estrildidae), detailed in the BWL taxonomy currently used on this website, plus the European Goldfinch and the European Greenfinch. Chats include the four species of Chat plus the Gibberbird.
3. Head and Bill Portrait.  The focus is on the head and bill but an appropriate amount of neck and upper body (minimum please) as a base for the head and bill is acceptable.  The challenge is to obtain sharpness and clarity with the identifiable features of the head and bill including those features that identify the species.
4. Reflections.  The reflection must be of the bird and will mainly be in water but could be in other reflective surfaces such as mirrors (eg. external mirrors on cars).  While many of the entries will be water-birds keep in mind that bush-birds go to water to drink early in the morning when the water is often still and ideal for reflection.  We have a number of such images in the BLP library ranging from cockatoos and parrots to small birds such as finches. The reflection must be recognisable as the bird that is the subject of the photograph.

Except for the Best of 2019 competition, all entries must have been taken within two years of the opening date of the competition.  The competition dates are now available, on the 2020 Competition Themes page.

Our October Newsletter contained an announcement of the Special Theme for the 2020 BirdLife Australia Photography Award competition, which is Australian Fairy-wrens, Emu-wrens and Grasswrens.  This much-loved Australasian bird family, the fairy-wrens, emu-wrens and grasswrens come in a wide range of stunning plumages. They are characterised by long legs, tiny bodies and long straight tails, and are always found in family groups. Many fairy-wrens are much loved features of our parks and gardens, while others, such as the endangered grasswrensand the elusive emu-wrens require special trips to see them and a lot of searching!  Images must contain one or more fairy-wren, emu-wren or grasswren species which are defined as all species in the family Maluridae.

BirdLife Photography is delighted to announce the winner of the 2017 Tom Oliver Award  ...

Con Boekel

Our 2017 TOA winner, Georgina Steytler, presented the 2019 Award Certificate to Con during our Biennial Conference in Fremantle.

Tom Oliver Award Winners, Georgina Steytler (2017) and Con Boekel (2019)

Con's winning entry, a photo essay titled "Bird Photography for What?", is available here.

We have been overwhelmed with the number and standard of entries in our national competition.  At close of entries late on Sunday 4^th August, we'd received more than 4,100 entries, eclipsing the 3,100 received in 2018 (the competition's first year).

Our panel of top international and Australian judges have a big task ahead of them.  We're expecting to announce results in late October or early November.

We thank all entrants for supporting the competition, especially our own Birdlife Photography members.

Over the years, we've published a number of educational/tutorial articles in our bi-monthly Newsletter.  These are now available in Resources - Our Articles.  That page provides access to articles in four categories:

• Photography Techniques and Processes
• Image Processing
• Articles about Equipment
• In-depth Technical Articles

Articles in this section which are less than 24 months old are only accessible to our members, who must log-in to access them.

In the past week or so (early April), we've had several members contact us to report that they have been unable to upload images to our galleries; the upload would hang, sometimes reporting a timeout error, sometimes with no error message.  It appears that a recent update to the Safari web browser - the default for Apple systems - is the cause of this behaviour.  Our advice to Safari users who experience this problem is to change to an alternative web browser; we recommend either Chrome or Firefox.