Anthony Laven

43-47 Francis Close, Kooralbyn, QLD 4285, Australia

I started birding in 1968 when I was posted to Ethiopia. Using my 8mm cine camera I tried to capture pictures of local birds. However, getting good pictures with only a 6 X zoom and without a tripod proved to be near impossible. Following my return to the UK and a career change no further filming was possible. In 1980 another career change saw me move to Thailand where I stayed until 1995 and relocation to Singapore left me in the Far East until 2002. My job was advertised with the magic words “extensive travel within the Asia/Pacific Region”. This provided me with opportunities to bird in a wide range of places. This was extended by one of our sons whose work took him to Venezuela for 3 years, Alaska for another 3 and currently is in Dubai. Of our other two sons, one is working in New Zealand and the other in Thailand, giving me more opportunities for birding. In the mid 1980’s I bought my first video camera – a Sony Handycam. This was followed by the purchase of a Canon EX-1 Hi. In 1999 this was replaced by Canon XL1s . Many of the originals were converted to VHS tapes, with a resultant loss of definition. My initial attempts editing them on a computer in 1991 with a Pentium 2 processor were less than satisfactory, now with the latest processors and Adobe Premiere and retirement I have the time to spend on sorting out the many videos I have taken over the last twenty years.
IBC Personal statistics:

• First material posted on 12 November 2009
• Number of videos posted: 108 covering 93 species (0.93%)
• Number of photos posted: 0 covering 0 species (0%)
• Number of sounds posted: 0 covering 0 species (0%)