Blog
A Week In Rarotonga
We managed to get away for a mid winter break to Rarotonga. We struck gold with the weather getting a whole week of fine sunny days and had a really great holiday. We stayed in a beach front house in Titkaveka right next to one of the best reefs for snorkling so were very much spoilt being able to kayak or snorkle from our back door every day. Beautiful clear days, great sunsets and some stunningly clear nights with great views of the milky way stretchig over the lagoon.We did a
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8th Aug 2019
Kahu In The Rain
Yesterday, in the heavy rain I noticed a juvenile kahu or swamp harrier on our lawn apparantly trying to wait the rain out. By the time the rain stopped it looked pretty saturated and though it tried to spread its wings and shake the water out it appeared to be struggling and quite shaky.At one point an adult kahu came and landed beside it and then after a few minutes flew off again. The juvenile stayed on the lawn for another couple of hours every so often spreading its wings but obviously not
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13th Jul 2019
New Zealand Dotterel/Tuturiwhatu
I decided to go and look for the New Zealand dotterel or tuturiwhatu again at the Waiongana river mouth in the weekend and was lucky enough to find a pair hunting for food on the beach. Dotterel are fiesty little birds and don't seem to be too fazed by the presence of humans. These ones came up quite close to me, one of them to within a couple of meters getting inside the minimum focal length of my lense.The Waiongana river mouth is one of the few places along the Taranaki coast wher
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10th Jul 2019
Taranaki At Dawn
With some fresh snow falling overnight and what like like a clear cold winter morning I headed out to Otaraoa Rd to see if I could get some dawn shots of Taranaki catching the first light from the morning sun.Unfortunately, though the mountain was clear, there was too much cloud on th eastern horizon lrgely obscuring the sunrise though it do break through briefly and illuminate the summit before disappearing behind the cloud. The temperature was 3degC, so not quite cold enough for a frost but pl
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7th Jul 2019
Welcome Swallow
There were a large number of welcome swallow (or warou) at the Waiwhakaio river mouth in the weekend hunting insects over the water. I've always loved watching welcome swallow fly. They're very active little birds flying low over the waer either catching insects on the wings or picking them off the surface of the water.Photographing them in flight is a challenge. I spent an hour or more on Sunday trying to get shots of them in flight over the water and out of more than 200 shots ended up with on
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2nd Jul 2019