Plum-headed finches caught mating by Peter Merritt

Photographed in the Cairns area in the far northern part of Queensland, Australia.  Peter said the mating act lasted ” about 3 to 4 seconds ” Photo: Peter Merritt.

Using a Canon Mark IV he captured more than 30 frames during the 3 to4 seconds of photography. Photo : Peter Merritt

The above photographs could perhaps be a world first ! Plum-headed finches ( Aidemosyne modesta ) are found in Eastern Australia in open woodland and tall savanna grassland areas, often near water or swamps. They are highly sociable birds and can quite often be seen with Double-barred finches during the non-breeding season. The species is normally very nomadic over a wide area in both the breeding and non breeding seasons.  They will lay, on average, 4 to 6 small white eggs and both sexes will be involved with the incubation, which takes about 12 days. Chicks fledge at about 21 days and are normally weaned roughly at 18 days

Peter Merritt is currently on a photo safari in the Kruger National Park. South Africa. Photo Eelco Meyjes

The Rare Finch Conservation Group would publicly like to thank Peter Merritt from New South Wales, Australia for kindly donating his brilliant photographs to the RFCG. Peter has done this in the interest to help advance public awareness and the beauty of finches on an international basis. Peter is semi retired and works for 8 months of the year on a heavy road grader machine, on a cattle station in Northern Australia, to support his wonderful hobby of wildlife photography.

The road grader that Peter works on to support his hobby of wildlife photography.

The cattle station that Peter works on has no less than 30,000 head of cattle. The station is 125 km long.The multi trailered road trains used can transport up to 120 head of cattle at a time ( see example in right hand photo ). Peter said he often works with his camera’s on standby , in his grader cab, just in case there is something very special for him to photograph. He uses Canon Mark IV cameras. Today Peter is currently spending the next 3 weeks in the Kruger National Park, South Africa doing what he enjoys most – photographing wildlife. For more info on Peter Merrit visit : http://www.merrittimages.com. We certainly look forward to seeing the results of his outstanding photographic work in the next couple of weeks.

The Rare Finch Conservation Group is registered in South Africa as a non-profit organisation and is totally 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