I think today may have been one of the biggest up and down days so far. After a so-so morning photographing, with no Regent Honeyeater photos to show for it, I retured to my campsite to find that my new stove, accessories, skillet, and utensils had disappeared. Shame on me for leaving them out, but still it isn't a fun thing to have things stolen from you. After a bit of investigating and asking around, the story is this. Two men, probably in their 30s took some stuff (spatula, skillet, and knife) off of my picnic table while a local Lithgow Council worker driving a water truck watched. They put this in their white Ute (pickup/SUV for those non-Aussies) and drove off before the truck driver could do anything. However, he did come up to my site and packed up my stove, gas tank, and stand just in case the two guys came back for more. On his next refill of the truck (the water connection is at the entrance to the campground), he returned my equipment. A huge thanks to him and the other locals who helped me out by looking around and one even brought me a stove to use for the night. All in all I lost about $10 of kitchen equipment and a very nice Randall-made knife that had been given to me. The knife was a big deal, but the rest is easily replacable, including the stove had it actually had been stolen. For a while there I had lost some of my faith in the reputation of the friendly and helpful Australian, but the truck driver and neighbors restored that as the afternoon progressed.
After this whole mess, I decided to go give the Regents one last shot and ended up with nothing to show for it. That means between four mornings and three afternoons, the Regent Honeyeaters have evaded me. I have a few images, but nothing up to my usual standards, both technically and artistically. However, I figured since I have been going on about these birds for quite a few days now I should at least post one of the images so people can see what a beautiful bird it is and why it was worth sitting below a tree waiting for four days to try to photograph. This was one of the images taken yesterday, and while it isn't great, it does show the bird in its habitat.
Tomorrow is a travel day as I head up to Warrumbungles National Park where I will spend some time exploring and photographing. Not sure how long and what to expect but thats what this trip is all about.
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