Whistling Kite, water birds and a beautiful sunset

A quick trip to the Poo Ponds after work. The air was warm, still, and on the nose. The insects were very friendly, and the main target bird nowhere to be found. Having said all of that, an enjoyable experience, especially the sunset

There were lots of Australian Pratincoles, and all the usual ducks, Avocets and Stilts. Sandpipers seemed to be staying away from where I was. A Whistling Kite seemed to be struggling a bit with the heat, either perched or flying, tongue hanging out

There were a couple of Yellow-billed Spoonbills, swishing side to side, and this Glossy Ibis was nearby

There are a large number of Whiskered Terns constantly swooping the top of the ponds for insects

One of the few sandpipers that caught my eye was this Wood Sandpiper, nicely perched on a rock

Disaster or blessing? Time will tell

I have had my Canon 7D for about 16 months now. The other day I used it in the car, then got out and went to take more photos and something had happened. The autofocus wasn't working. Initially I thought it was a problem with the lens, which has been playing up recently.
After trying other lenses, I started to twig something else was wrong. After searching on-line, I found a lot of threads about a particular problem with the Canon DSLRs. Extreme change in temperature can do something to the chip inside the camera. Alas for me, the issue with mine was the autofocus.
Still, I am a bird-watcher, and after a few days of just being a bird-watcher, I'd had enough. I had to head into Papunya from Mt Liebig as I had some students at Papunya I needed to do some training with at some stage. Took the camera along "just in case".
After visiting the students, I visited the Poo Ponds (as we weird bird-watchers do) and was pleasantly surprised to see among other birds, a Yellow-billed Spoonbill that had been there last week, an Australian Pratincole (which hadn't), 5 Sharp-tailed Sandpipers and one Wood Sandpiper (some of which had been there last week) as well as a number of other birds including a Whiskered Tern. I was contemplating my navel or maybe I was looking at the settings on the camera, can't remember which, when I heard a mad panic among the birds on the ponds. I looked up to see a Brown Falcon had just made a swish at none of them in particular, and followed that all the way to the far side of the ponds from me. Eye up at the eyepiece, my ears were alerted to another panic session in front of me. The Pratincole was piping wildly and the White-necked Heron (hadn't noticed that there - great bird watcher I am) flapped madly as something else zoomed past me. Black Falcon! Oh no! Today of all days, no autofocus, no IS on the lens, oh well. I watched and the Pratincole managed to escape. All three birds then circled high, the Black Falcon the highest until it was just a dot under the clouds.

So, disaster or blessing? I had set the camera to the "M" dial mode. I couldn't move the F stop from 5.6 so I figured that would have to do for the aperture. I had the shutter speed at 1/1600th and the ISO at 800. I also had changed the focus point to the max 19 points rather than a single or extended spot I normally have. OK, all the settings at what I hoped might work and clicked away at the Black Falcon. Below are the results. As to the question, I have often been amazed how some photographers only ever use manual focus for their photos. Maybe not a disaster, but maybe not a blessing either. All these shots are from today.

Black Falcon

Pacific Black Duck

Whiskered Tern

White-necked Heron

Yellow-billed Spoonbill

Sometimes you get no peace in the natural world even if you outnumber the protagonist(s) 50 to 1

The Grey Teals at Papunya number over 50 at the moment. For the past week or so I have watched them take off, circle wildly and loudly then settle back onto the water. They were joined by Pink-eared Ducks (were 5 the other day, now seemingly back to 4) and Pacific Black Ducks (3 which have now either taken off to their next stop, or been taken off by something else). Mostly, I thought my human intervention via the car was the reason for their flightiness. Late this afternoon it was a Black-breasted Buzzard, human, Little Crow, and they even seemed disturbed by the Whiskered Tern at times. I wished I was closer to the action but the area is enclosed by a cyclone fence, so some of the images, especially the Buzzard were unfortunately not as crisp as I would have liked.

Black-breasted Buzzard

Grey Teals off to the skies then returning to their water haven

Little Crow

Pink-eared Ducks

Whiskered Tern

(I know why it is here now, but why would it come here in the first place? Maybe a regular stopover)

Willie Wagtail with one of those lovely Central Australian backdrops