Lockdown is dragging on, and with delta cases popping up outside of Tāmaki Makaurau, I’m content to wait it out. That doesn’t mean it’s easy. I’m losing my field season, the last of my PhD. I’m not quite sure what my thesis will look like, and I’m hoping I’ll still be able to finish by September next year. It feels a bit like it’s slipping away from me.

This past week Chris and I have prepared all of our field gear, ready to go as soon as restrictions ease. We’ve been logging in to the virtual World Seabird Conference, enjoying talks from fellow seabirders all over the globe. And we’ve been watching the garden birds.

Spring is beautiful chaos. Trees are busting into flower (my eyes are busting into hay-fever), and the birds are getting territorial at the start of their breeding seasons. Dawn is a chorus of blackbirds, tūī, songthrushes, and the harsh scream of kākā. Night is full of ruru.

So while I can’t be in the field, I can’t do my work as a scientist, I can fall back to the other half of my life. The bird photography. The joy of chasing images of birds going about their lives. Waiting every day for the croaking screams of a flock of kākā soaring overhead. Watching them strip bark from trees, flowers from branches, chasing each other through the canopy, dangling upside-down, and occasionally, just occasionally, posing for a photo.