As I write, it is 21 years since I took this picture, but I remember the occasion well. Big Brook Dam is quite large and in itself of little interest to a bird photographer; just a few swans and other common waterbirds a long way away into the sun with awful light. However I found a small, green puddle off to one side and spent a happy hour photographing half a dozen different species of honeyeater drinking there. (Small birds, quite rightly, don’t like drinking from large water bodies - too much risk of a predator hiding under the water: a snake, a fish, even a large frog.)
Afterwards I walked back along the pleasant lakeside path, shared between pedestrians and cyclists. A man and his son on bikes overtook me. Seeing my big scope and tripod as they went past, as they sailed past the man said,
"Did you get the Black Swan?"
How to explain that, no, swans are very common and were not of any interest to me today, and they were much too far away out in the middle of the water, and in any case directly into the sun, but thanks for asking? No photographer would have the slightest interest in them.
But he was only being nice, and deserved a pleasant answer. I opened my mouth, to say something, thought better of it, decided to say something else, thought better of that too. By then, they had cruised on well past me and were disappearing around a bend in the path.
"Huh!" said the man to his son, thinking they were out of earshot. "Doesn’t speak English."