In the Illawarra there are many Rainbow Lorikeets, alias Trichoglossus moluccanus, a very colourful type of parrot that can be found all down the eastern seaboard of Australia reaching around to South Australia.

They have rather, shall we say... strong... personalities. I don't mean that they're savage, but they are certainly pugnacious. Even the cockatoos, which are at least twice their size, keep their distance from them. They are also pushy and demanding. If they find a place that has, over the years, been prepared to put some food out for them, they (and descendant generations) will return demanding more. Chirping loudly on the balcony, hanging off the wire mesh of the flyscreen door, popping their head up over the glass doors and staring into the lounge room...

Also, there are usually two or three of them, depending on whether there is a baby with the couple. I put out plenty to share. And invariably one of them will drive the other(s) off so that it can have first dibs.

Normally if I give them something it will be in the afternoon. However I've seen the forecast. When I took the shot (and now) there is not a cloud in the sky. The sky is intensely blue, the sun intensely yellow, and the heat... not quite intense yet, but it will get there. But later today a change will come through. Unlike the afternoon storms of the last few days, this one won't be transient. There will probably be storms. There will certainly be rain, and for the next 2 days as well which is a pain in the backside since I need to go to the office this week and our rail line does not handle rain well. The temperatures will drop by about 10 degrees compared to what they'll get to today. That bit, I can live with.

"Grab a photo while you can, unless you want to be doing yet another macro tonight", I thought to myself.
"OK Birdeh, I'll tell you what; I'll swap you breakfast for my daily photo. OK?"
"Sounds good. Just give me the bread and honey."

The problem is that the balcony is in shade while, as I said, the background was intensely lit. The viewfinder display was telling me that the bird was being massively underexposed against the glare-soaked background so I had to take a bunch of shots with varying exposures. (Note the +1 exposure compensation on this shot.)

In a couple of shots, like this one, most of the bird was in shadow while part of it was in a shaft of sunlight cutting through the trees. This resulted in a slightly evil, menacing glare worthy of a film noir... well, aside from the colourful plumage anyway.

I suspect that Orson Welles would have approved of such lighting.

So that's one more day of the year down, one more photo down.