Finch photography reaches great new heights

A Southern masked-weaver building its nest. Photo Col Roberts

A Thick-billed weaver building its nest. Photo Col Roberts

A long-tailed widow finch in full flight. Photo Col Roberts

A pin-tailed whydah courting its hen . Photo Col Roberts

It’s not often that one sees great action shots of finches building their nests or some stunning photographs of finches in full flight. Col Roberts, who is a magistrate by profession and lives in Perth Australia, must rank as one of the worlds best photographers of finches.

The Master at Work. Col Roberts from Perth Australia on the recent RFCG EcoTour to Africa. Photo Eelco Meyjes

Using his Canon camera, with its 600mm lense plus a 1.4 converter, he is able to hand hold and take incredible high speed photographs of finches in action. Col Roberts was one of our guests on the recent RFCG EcoTour to South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe. His passion for photography and his absolute enthusiasm for always trying to capture the perfect finch photograph was shared with all of us on tour. Each and everyone of us learnt a trick or two from him. He was always willing to share his knowledge and talent with every member on the tour. Col has very kindly donated a number of his top quality photographs to the Rare Finch Conservation Group, which will be used for promotional and fund raising purposes over the next couple of months.

Strong interest for doing a similar 23 day tour has already been indicated.( See the Kruger National Park, Botswana and the Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe ) For those finch enthusiasts that may wish to participate on the next tour please contact either Russell Kingston at indruss@bigpond.com or Eelco Meyjes at editor@avitalk.co.za. All tour participants will be required to sign an indemnity form prior to departure. All profits are donated to the Rare Finch Conservation Group.

The Rare Finch Conservation Group is registered in South Africa as a non-profit organisation and is dependant on donors and sponsors to carry out its conservation work on finches in the wild. For more info visit http://www.rarefinch.org or write to the secretary at editor@avitalk.co.za

SEE – CONSERVE – ENJOY