Mt Putuaki

Here's a photo I took a few months ago from the road in front of my house looking south. This is Mt Putuaki (or Mt Edgecumbe although it's closest to the township of Kawerau rather than the township of Edgecumbe.) Its a classic volcano shape, very jurassic looking! I can just imagine a few terradactyls flying thru this shot. I entered this photo in the Canon Amateur Photographer of the Year Awards and it made it to the website. Its not likely to win any prizes tho...perhaps I should have photoshopped some terradactyls in.....

Shining cuckoos

Getting settled in to the new digs very slowly - lots of distractions. There is a large Kowhai tree in the back yard and while helping Mum out with some gardening we noticed it was being stripped by thousands of green black caterpillars. Mum was tempted to spray with insecticide until we noticed a charming little bird visiting one morning to feast on the insects. It was a shining cuckoo! I've photographed them a few times before but only dead ones that have flown into windows. I love the stripey pyjama pants and the bronzey green shiny coat reminiscent of a hummingbird. A migratory species, the cuckoo comes from the Solomon Islands.
They arrive here every spring, breed and lay one big fat egg into the nest of the tiny grey warbler which has already raised a brood of its own offspring by then. The warbler nest is like a hanging basket with a door too small for a cuckoo to fit through so its still a mystery how it gets its egg into the nest. Somehow it manages to then it just buggers off to leave the warbler to raise the monster child which grows to twice the size of its adopted parents. I wonder then how the cuckoo grows up knowing its a cuckoo and not a warbler, you'd suspect a bit of an identity crisis after all that. The Kowhai Moth caterpillar is one of the favourite foods of the cuckoo. Its interesting to watch them feed. The cuckoo grabs a caterpillar and whacks it on the nearest branch, it munches on it some then whacks it some more to tenderise it. When the caterpillars guts have turned to mush the cuckoo then sucks it dry and often discards the skin or swallows whats left. Within a week the population of caterpillars has been decimated and I've seen up to three cuckoos feeding at once in our one kowhai tree! Obviously the tree won't be sprayed in the future - we will be protecting this valuable food source for these guys who will be leaving to go back to the Solomons around the end of this month.
Fat and fit on a diet of juicy caterpillars, I hope they leave it a week or two before they go as I just see cyclone Thomas is doing its worst in that region of the pacific. Its a long way for a little bird to fly without having a cyclone to contend with.

100th post - a long time comin!

I haven't written a blog for two weeks now. I have been busy sorting out my new studio PLUS I have been waiting for something special to write about as this is my 100th post! Unfortunately it has been jinxed and the best shot I could come up with over the last two weeks has been that of a bloody seagull! GO FIGURE! So I thought I'd get number 100 out of the way and see what happens. I don't write a lot of posts, only when I have something I really want to share so the first 100 posts have taken me nearly two and a half years!

I got these two shots last Friday morning. Im including the two herons because they have featured the most on my blog. They are a couple and often perch together on the yachtclub railing to preen every morning. They are my favourite models and have become quite used to me aiming my lens in their direction.

Looking back to September 2007 to my very first photo I remember how excited I was to discover this colourful nudibranch (a type of seaslug) in a rockpool down in Te Kaha.
Interestingly enough I also took this photo (below) on the same day but the nudibranch took precedence! Shame on me...in my defence, it is a blog about nature 'n stuff. Apologies to Willie. Both pretty easy on the eye, no disrespect intended.So thanks to all those who have read, followed and given feedback. I must admit I've been pleasantly surprised by the response as I really only started this to share my pics with my folks and my sister in Tauranga. Now I have followers in other countries! Who'da thought. : )

Chaffinch with a sore head.

A couple of weeks ago I heard a noise that I instantly recognised as the sound of a bird hitting the window. It happens from time to time, sometimes the birds are just stunned, the sit a while, recover , then fly off. Other times they die instantly altho fortunately this hasn't happened very often. Upon investigation I found this chaffinch round the back of the house. I took some photos and played around with this shot in photoshop desaturating the background and manipulating a few different aspects. After a few minutes the bird flew up to alight on a fencepost where I got a few more photos before it flew off with hopefully no more than a splitting headache.

Bun Fight

It seems like months since my last post but I've been SO busy. I've been helping my parents move house from Opotiki to Whakatane, who knew they had so much stuff!!! Especially my Dad who had a whole basement full of...well, everything imaginable to do with fishing and model aeroplane making paraphernalia. I spent yesterday taking things out of boxes, turning them over in my hands and thinking "What the hell IS that?This is one of my favourite photos (taken by Troy.) Its of my Dad with a model WWI biplane called a Sopwith Pup which he built himself from scratch. My favourite plane of his is a much larger Ansaldo, also a WWI biplane which he built as a one quarter scale. I should get a photo of that one to post. It has a chainsaw motor in it and it flies like a dream!

Anyway once we get Dads garage sorted its time for me to do up the sleepout next to it which I am going to rent for my NEW STUDIO! I'm so excited because I can decorate it however I want and altho its only about a third of the size of my last one it'll be just brilliant!

The Folks new place backs on to the Whakatane river, its just over the fence so when its really hot I can swim during my lunch hour. I can walk along the stopbank to the saltmarsh to photograph herons etc & the other day Moko the dolphin was just a little way down the river swimming with the local kids!

During our morning coffee breaks we sit out on the deck and watch the birds fight over bread we put out on the bird feeder. Here are a couple of shots I took during the week of them. I like the action shots of their tussles over the best feeding spots, the little buggers can be quite brutal actually. Talk about survival of the fittest!