Up close with an albatross
Toroa / Campbell albatross It's no secret that I love albatrosses. Being at sea, watching them in their element is hands down one of my favourite things. Aotearoa is a…
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…
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.…
Spring bloom
Karo - Pittosporum crassifolium It’s last light, golden fragments flung from scattered clouds in an icey blue sky painting the tallest reaches of a struggling karo tree that sits outside…
Eyes in the dark
I'm halfway up a tree and there's a Duvaucell's gecko giving me a very disconcerting grin. I'm perched so I can see across the expanse of burrowed ground that forms…
Rangatira – South East Island
I wrote a blog a while ago about the Chatham islands, and how I was looking forward to visiting Rangatira for a seabird translocation project. It's taken me a while…
6216
White fantail
This little bird, this unusual leucistic fantail, spurred a lot of interest last year. I spent a lot of time watching it and chatting to people visiting the cemetery where…
Ulva Island Birdventures
Every day for a week, I hopped on the Rakiura Charters boat at Golden Bay, disembarked on Ulva island, and spent the day in solitude. Well, nearly solitude. Human solitude…
Blue and gold
Light goes quickly in the mountains, particularly in winter. Days start cold and blue, even with clear skies. They end cold and blue, golden rays barely eking over the stark…
Return of the vignettes
Way back in 2015, I developed a habit of posting a single image with a caption as an additional blog every Wednesday. This was to keep my creative mojo up…
Shooting stormies
I realised that the title could be a little misleading, or at least interpreted in different ways. I meant it in the sense that the white-faced storm petrels were like…
A long walk to nowhere
One of the things I wanted to do down on Rakiura was go for a good hike out into the wilderness. The middle of nowhere. I relish the feeling of…
A quiet moment
This is one of my favourite images from the #birdventurenz. It's one of my favourite images so far. It's not flashy, there's no exciting action going on. It's a moment…