Even walking in a group, I usually end up on my own. At the back. Or way behind, distracted by patterns, plants, light, and of course, birds. I like taking a slower approach to the world around me, spending time watching rather than just passing through. And it leads to moments like these, in the last light of a bruised dusk, with the tiny peeps of New Zealand dotterels, tūturiwhatu, zipping around my ankles on the beach, picking morsels out of the wrecked kelp in the tideline, getting territorial with one another. Little shadows, legs a-blur in the failing light. Trilling, bobbing, going about their lives as the fine sand shuffs around my knees when I crouch down to their eyeline. Sharp photographs are out of the question for these little zooming birds, so trying to capture their frenetic pace takes the hit-and-miss technique of pan-blur. I have a hit, but I don’t know that til much later.

It’s enough to just sit immersed in their world for a few minutes, before scrabbling up over a headland to catch up with the rest of the group as the light goes completely.