I went out to Muriwai recently. I miss seabirds, and the Gannets there are the easiest way for me to get my fix! The chicks are fledging, moulting their fluffy white down into sleek, speckled grey-black feathers. There wasn’t much wind, but there was a lot of nice light, and plenty of adults flying around.

I had the most fun down on the beach though, finding silhouettes and textures in the sand. There’s always that one person who walks into your photo, isn’t there? In the case above I don’t mind, I think it adds more than it detracts. Spot the odd bird out! 

These rippled textures in the sand made me think of fjords and islands and a frozen sea. The way water shapes the world around us is so beautiful.

I could probably have easily walked around these White-fronted terns to photograph them in the light. I liked the elegance of their silhouettes, and the rippled reflection in the wet sand. And I have plenty of photos of terns in nice light, so I wanted something a little different. I also sank into the wet sand quite a bit while waiting for their poses to line up nicely!

There’s all sort to photograph on the beach, and I’ll do another post soon of people and landscape photos from this evening. What caught my eye on the way back past the rock were these two starfish tucked in a crevice, and their reflections in the dark water.

Back up at the colony, we lost the light quickly. It wasn’t much of a problem for me though, because I wanted to practice panning. Fast-flying gannets are very hard to pan with! There are a lot of very blurry images from this set, but I was lucky to get a few sharp ones, of which this was my favourite. The fading sunlight on the cliffs around the colony paints them a burning orange, which goes nicely with the gold tones on the gannets head.

It’s wonderful to have such an inspiring place so close to Auckland!