My head has been throbbing all afternoon. It’s a bluebird day, glaring sun on white sand, which isn’t helping much. But the Ashley river mouth is a good place for birds, and while I’m killing time in Christchurch waiting for my lens to be cleaned (with a replacement on loan), it’s where I’m going to spend the golden hours. The action is scattered – there are gulls and godwits on the other side of the channel, terns flying over, and dotterels scurrying along the sands. I pull out my best-used tool in wildlife photography – aimless wandering.
I end up on the sea-side of the sandbank, with a flock of white-fronted and black-fronted terns. My other most-used tool in wildlife photography is a painfully slow belly-crawl. It works a treat. I’m lying flat in the sand, watching birds preens and shuffle. Some of the white-fronted terns have a pinkish tinge to their plumage, and that has me wondering for a while. Is it diet-related? Is it krill – that small marine crustacean – that tints them with rose? Blushing terns. I’ll have to ask someone about it. Still, it’s peaceful lying here watching birds relax. Until a dog and their walker plough down the beach and the birds scatter. Back to aimless wandering.
One eye through the viewfinder, one squinted against the glare of the afternoon is not helping the pounding in my head. But the light is starting to take on that liquid gold quality that make the best images, and I’ve found my terns again. Along the side of the channel they’ve roosted up with a big flock of black- and red-billed gulls. The belly-crawl is a bit more painful this time, with irregular rocks and occasional sticks jabbing me. But it works just as well, and I’m the perfect distance for photographing tiny terns. I never realised how much smaller black-fronted terns were compared to white-fronted terns. I’d always though of white-fronted terns as small and delicate – comparing them to caspians – but black fronted terns are smaller still. And stunning, the adults with their bright orange bills, glowing in the evening light, stark against black-white-grey feathers.
There’s an accusatory peep from my right. A wrybill is standing an arms length away from me, looking suspiciously at me over its skew bill. Another one flutters down next to it, and they set off across the sands, probing and scurrying. I rest my chin on top of my camera and just watch. Opening both eyes and relaxing helps the pain in my head subside a little. I know that when the suns sets the cool purple of dusk will bring more relief. But for now I’m intent on enjoying the golden hour. The dramas of terns and gulls, screaming and wheeling, ruffling feathers, returning with fish and chasing each other through the air.
The tide laps up over where the birds are roosting, and they take to the air. The light is turning rich and orange. I realise that if I don’t start back now, I’ll be cut off by the tide and have a long roundabout walk back to the car. So I slowly wander in the warm light, banded dotterels skimming past, terns wheeling in the air above. I know I have some nice images from this afternoon – and some of my best black-fronted terns. There’s a calm joy in that knowledge – abating the stress of having to get photos for a book that niggles me on unproductive days.
Working my way back along the edge of the tide, I spot the kakī that had been distant on the other side of the channel foraging in the shallows. It’s mate, a pied stilt, is beside it, and two motley hybrid youngsters are following them, peeping quietly. They’re backlit, but the light is so rich it seems to wrap around and suffuse everything with a warm clarity. As the sun sinks, I follow them along, watching them flick crabs from the mud and swallow them down. The gentle yapping of contented stilts. It’s a quiet perfection – a saturated sky dimming to dusky purple, and birds going about their lives. It’s dark by the time I reach the car, and I know that as soon as I get back to my little shack at the campground I won’t feel like cooking. My head still has the cumulative pain of the day riding behind my eyes, and I can’t think of anything worse than staring at a screen. But photos need to be downloaded, backed up, and I need to eat. It’s going to be takeaways again.
The harsh LED lights in the cabin don’t help my head, but the dark walk to the burger joint at the petrol station does. I’m eating fries while photos download, watching news of a kakī release on the television. I flick through the images from the day and feel that sense of calm again, the joy in being outside, the wide light and the birds all around. I pick a few favourites, flick the television off, and roll into bed, killing the lights. Eyes closed, I can see the slow ebb of water in the channel of the estuary, the warm liquid light, and the meditative wading of four stilts.
