“Beyond the Photo” is a blog series where I look back on some of my favorite photos and describe the stories behind them and what makes them meaningful to me.

One of my favorite photos from 2024 was this image titled: “Honeyeater on Frenchman’s Peak”. I love how the colours, details, and the nice subject separation with the blurred background and foreground turned out in this photo. This was one of the first photos I took of a bird where I felt like every technical detail lined up perfectly for a beautiful, textbook shot of a bird species in it’s natural environment.

Pictured is a New Holland Honeyeater at the summit of Frenchman’s Peak (known as Mandooboornup by the Noongar) in Cape Le Grand National Park in Southwestern Australia. This bird quickly became one of my favorite species during my time in Australia as they were often busy in the backyard tree of my house in Fremantle. Because of this, I spent lots of time watching these birds out my window and trying to capture photos of them from the back porch as they darted around feeding on the nectar from the tree’s flowers. Out of my whole time in Australia though, this picture above was my favorite shot of one.

The Frenchman’s Peak hike is located about a 45 minute drive west from Esperance, WA, along the remote south-western coast of Australia. I had spent a few weeks at the end of my water polo season road tripping and camping around the SW corner of Australia before heading back to Canada. Esperance had been at the top of my list to explore ever since I had first gotten down to Australia.

Cape Le Grand is a stunning National Park known for spectacular hiking, coastline, and incredible sprawling beaches (such as Lucky Bay where a famous mob of kangaroos live and can often be seen). The trail from the parking lot to Frenchman’s Peak isn’t long but is fairly steep as it goes straight up a rock slab nearly all the way to the summit.

*The view from the summit of Frenchman’s Peak looking towards Hellfire Bay and the Southern Ocean.*

From the top, you get an unreal panoramic view of the coastline and surrounding mountains throughout Cape Le Grand National Park. I sat up at the summit for quite some time admiring the view when I noticed commotion in the nearby brush. I was surprised to see a group of these New Holland Honeyeaters so high up on the peak as I had only seen them in my backyard and around town parks prior.

*One of the many honeyeaters flying around the brush at the summit prior to getting my final photo.*

Over the span of about an hour I sat on a rock at the summit trying to photograph these birds from different angles. I noticed they were landing frequently on the branches of one particular bush so I positioned myself in a way that the background would be the distant landscape of Cape Le Grand much further below back down at sea level; this way the background would be nice and blurred out and the bird would really stand out in the frame. Unintentionally at the time, I also managed to get some green needles in the shot that were closer to me and blurred out in the foreground that I later noticed and quite liked. My shots from this day were all taken on the Sony a6400 with a Sigma 100-400mm lens.

On the way back down, I continued shooting photos of some beautiful flowers I hadn’t seen before. I even spotted a lifer, a Western Spinebill, just before getting back to my car. Such a cool looking bird that I would have loved to have gotten some better photos of. Unfortunately, I didn’t get many great shots of this one and it was my only time seeing this species while I was down in Australia… suppose it’s a good excuse to go back one day!

I spent the rest of the day exploring Cape Le Grand National Park; hiking a section of the Cape Le Grand Coastal trail while taking more photos (this probably deserves it’s own blog post). Below are some more photos from this amazing day. Hope you enjoy!