On a windy, choppy afternoon at the Rotorua lakefront, Dad and I photographed this male pāpango – New Zealand scaup – hunker down in a pretty wet and horrible perch for a nap. There were constant splashes and spray from wavelets crashing into the shore around the fallen trunk that he had chosen, along with his mate. They seemed remarkably content, water pouring over them and sluicing off their waterproof feathers. I went for some slow-shutter exposures to capture the water movement, with limited success. This frame was one of the few that kept enough sharp at 1/15th of a second to make a pleasing image. I’m so impressed by the image stabilisation with the Nikon 800mm f/6.3 on the Z9 – even in pretty windy conditions, it was possible to get some nice shots.

Nikon Z9 + Nikon 800mm f/6.3