Beachwind
It's beachy weather, a hot blue sky with white froths of cloud. The sun is a hammer of heat, tempered by a chill wind blowing out to sea. It comes…
Short updates for now!
Between fieldwork, finding and moving into a new flat, and all the other bits and pieces of life, I have very little time to write at the moment. I have…
My Best bird photos of 2020
A follow up to the worst, here's my favourite photographs from the hellscape that was 2020!
My Worst bird photos of 2020
It's okay to take shitty photos, as long as you learn from them! Here's my "worst of" for 2020, because not every photo is going to win you awards.
All the small things
Here are a few wee things that have been making me happy recently: Fat, fiery sunsets Tiny wee storm petrels Little grinning geckos The honeyed scent of tī kōuka (cabbage…
“Fast-food” photography
I go through cycles with the social media side of photography. Sometimes I’m excited and driven to share stories, and other times I go on a months-long hiatus not because…
Paikea
You never know what you might see, when you head out to sea. A few weeks ago on a routine plankton-sampling trip we met this beautiful Humpback whale - paikea…
Thank you
This post accidentally went live the other day with no text! Whoops! We ended up having to depart Tawhiti Rahi a day early due to incoming weather and I wasn't…
I’m off!
Kia ora! It's the start of my busy season, and for the next two months (with a day here and there to sleep/breathe/maybe do some laundry) I will be in…
Photographs I wouldn’t have taken – part 2
I few years ago I wrote about how my photography evolved from birdwatcher-imagemaker to something more nuanced, in being responsive to the environments I find birds in and making photographs…
Island nights
I've spent a week under the stars, camping in a pōhutukawa clearing on a seabird island. Wind was constant, an endless river through the canopy. Hushing leaves and groaning trunk-creaks…
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Return to Motuihe
Three years ago, I spent the weekend seabird surveying Motuihe island looking for penguins. Last weekend, I did the exact same thing, with the exact same crew. It was wonderful.…
Celestial Navigators
It’s gone eleven at night, and still. The ocean is a gentle hush against the cliffs below, echoing in the narrow inlet. The sky is clear, velvet dark, moonless, starfull.…