Dawn at sea
I've been slopped around all night in my bunk and woke to a 3am alarm to take watch til dawn. Seasickness has me grumbling and dry-throated (thanks Scopoderm), but as…
Garden tūī
I've been getting distracted while working from home. It's feeling very springy and with the flowering karo there's a sudden influx of tūī rushing around and filling the garden with…
Brown quails
I get a real kick out of seeing these little birds. Brown quails are one of two introduced quail species in Aotearoa - originally from Australia, they have filled the…
Hawking fantails
I've been really enjoying playing with my 300mm f/4 PF recently, getting used to a non-zoom lens for bird photography. I've been lab-bound for a while, escaping on the weekends…
Little goals
I've been trying to nail a nice riroriro Grey warbler photograph recently. There's a pair that shows up every now and then in my sparse urban garden, foraging in the…
Spotlit toutouwai
I wrote a post recently about OOFFE (Out-of-focus foreground elements!) and how they can help remove distractions in cluttered images. A weekend trip to Ecology bush at Tāwharanui was the…
Incoming!
Little zipping tūturuatu (Shore plover) are difficult to photograph in flight! They're very speedy wee birds. After spending a lot of time, and getting a lot of blurry images of…
Little zooming legs
Even walking in a group, I usually end up on my own. At the back. Or way behind, distracted by patterns, plants, light, and of course, birds. I like taking…
Dinner
This tiny titipounamu with his dinner is one of my favourite images from a weekend up in Arthur's Pass a few years ago. The light was gorgeous but gone inside…
Shorebirds
What can I say? I've missed the ocean. I'm taking every chance to be on or as near the sea as possible now. With limited opportunities to get out on…
The Ōi of Mauao
The sky has faded from dusk blue to navy, a punch of cobalt where the sun has set. Smoky clouds are strewn across the sky, and we walk a gravel…
Muriwai, Muriwai, Muriwai
I've lived in Auckland for eight years or so now. Because I'm unashamedly a bird person, and seabirds are my passion, Muriwai gannet colony is one of my most-visited places.…
Tiny toutouwai details
I really like this photo for two reasons - one is the feather textures, which are just stunning. The other is that backlit foot - you wouldn't notice quite how…
Tauhou in the roses
I've been enjoying watching the garden birds outside my 'home-office' (my bedroom). House sparrows are the most common visitors, closely followed by these tauhou - silvereyes - tempted by the…
Korimako song
When korimako - bellbirds - are young, they learn to sing. They mimic the birds around then, stringing together strange combinations of burbling calls and whistles, disjointed melodies, until they…