Come on spring!

Despite it being a dull grey morning I couldn't help visiting the river before getting to my studio this morning. I sat in the car and sulked as it started to drizzle. The river was like something out of Willy Wonkas factory - chocolate with floodwater. I was about to leave when a white-faced heron turned up so I waited a bit more. Suddenly an egret landed on the mudflat, a white beacon in a dull landscape. It was too far away, even with my 350mm lens and the light was dreary. It did a breif flyby of the yacht club before chasing the white-faced heron off over the river. Two miserable shots were all I gleaned from the visit. I gave up and headed off and ten minutes later the sun came out in all its spring gloriousness. Sigh! This daffodil glows with the promise of better weather around the corner. A tui visits our early flowering kowhai about a week ago. Roll on Spring!

Fishing Egret and Fighting Herons!

I'm still waiting for the Kotuku to return to the river. The large white bird that flew over the saltmarsh last week (which I hoped was kotuku but suspected was an egret) was back feeding one morning. Sure enough, he was quite small and had a dark beak - an egret. Just as lovely as kotuku although not as impressive in size and unfortunately much harder to photograph as he is very shy! To get these photos I waited until he had caught himself a nice fat little eel and was distracted by trying to swallow the slippery wriggling meal which is not easy if you are a bird. With his attention on breakfast I snuck down the bank behind some rushes and shot this series of photos as he resumed feeding. The egret has a style of fishing all of its own and is quite entertaining as he flaps about actively chasing fish as opposed to the herons preferred silent stalk approach. The whitefaced herons will use a similar technique to the egrets at times but are usually more regal and dignified in their methods.

On Wednesday I arrived at the river to a most lovely morning, still and calm, sunny but cold. Perfect conditions for photos but there didn't seem to be any interesting birds around at all. Plenty of ducks taking refuge from hunters but I resist shooting (with my camera) both ducks and seagulls as much as I can.

Call it avian snobbery but you can take the best shot in the world of a duck or seagull but at the end of the day they are still just a duck or seagull if you get my drift!!!! ALTHOUGH I did weaken and shoot this photo of a pair of mallards with the excuse that it is a shot just as much about the water and lovely reflections as it is the ducks.

This pair were photographed just behind the skate bowl.

I decided to give up for the day and get to my studio and my painting so headed back to the yacht club where I had parked the car. As I was walking along the stopbank a whitefaced heron flew in from upriver and landed on the flats. Immediately another bird flew in from the rocky point to my right croaking angrily.

In the time I have been photographing these birds I won't go so far as to say I recognise each individually but I have come to know of a few by their habits. There are three or four birds who favour this feeding ground, two are a pair although they don't always feed together. Another is a single male who often challenges the male of the pair and two or three times I have witnessed arial battles between them. Unfortunately I have always been too far away to photograph them scrapping but it appeared that this morning I was finally able to get the opportunity. The heron from upriver was the single male, the one from the point one of a pair.

Battles usually start with body posturing, Both birds drop their wings a little and the long thin feathers on their backs stand semi-erect. They hold their heads up as high as they can, all this posturing in an effort to appear bigger than they truly are. They strut side on to each other for a bit then turn and show their other side as they strut back again like yachts tacking in a race. If neither side backs down then they get closer and closer before finally turning to face each other in a challenge to duel. These two didn't waste much time posturing before they were hard out fighting! Unfortunately I didnt have time to get closer and I was shooting into the sun so my photos arent the best quality but they capture some of the action. There were literally feathers flying although they didn't show up in my images.

After a battle of about five or six seconds the male from the point beat a hasty retreat back to where he had come from, near where my car was parked. I followed and very soon he flew back to again challenge his attacker. I was able to get myself close and in the perfect position to capture another fight, this time with the sun at my back. BUT those bloody birds just did their sailboat impressions cruising up and down with their beaks pointed at the sky for about half an hour!!!! The loser from the first encounter was just not quite game enough to engage in combat and would back off as soon as the first one got too close. Finally he was distracted by a fish flopping about in the water so he grabbed that and used it as an excuse to walk away from the fight.

While the herons use this posture of "heads up as high as they can" to signal aggression, the opposite is used to signal a friendly greeting. The heron pair, after a morning feeding often rest together on the balcony of the yachtclub and when they meet there it is with heads lowered and beaks clapping at the other birds knee height. They croak softly to each other and the feathers on their backs are raised. The sexes are difficult to tell apart unless they are together with the male slightly larger and a little more colour in his plumage.

The Egret Hunter.

I saw the egret again at Awatapu lagoon but its SO timid. I can't get very close at all and he seems to know I'm stalking him. Its not an easy place to sneak up on him either. I have observed him for long enough now to recognise his feeding patterns so I got ahead of him around the bend and scrambled down a bank hiding in the bushes to wait for him to get there. I thought I'd sit still and quiet and give him 40 minutes. After 3 minutes I noticed a funny smell. After 5 minutes I had bugs crawling up my shirt. After 7 minutes the dampness from the ground had soaked into my jeans. After 9 minutes I got cramp in my leg! Stuff it I thought and started back up the bank and nearly stood on a huge dead rat laying on the ground - so thats what that smell was! I got to the top of the bank to see the egret flying past....BUGGER. So much for the surveillance, I hadn't lasted ten minutes! Thats why all my photos of the egret are of it flying off into the wild blue yonder.

The coot babies at Sullivans lake are growing fast. Another coot family further around the lake haven't been so lucky. One of the babies was killed by a pukeko I've been told. They can be very territorial those pooks. Mind you I've seen the coot parents chase bigger birds away from the nest without any problem pukekos included.

I'm happy to say the coots get better looking as they grow up. A classic case of "ugly duckling syndrome" to be sure.

Fibre & Fleece, Herons, Kotuku, Egret

In the middle of July Opotiki held its wonderful Fibre & Fleece Festival. I'd been working on a large entry for the exhibition called "Life Spiral." It was a collage made up of found natural objects arranged in a large spiral shape composed of over one hundred and thirty separate sections. It had taken months of work and was lots of fun but quite a challenge to collect all the bits. Each arm of the spiral represented a group of different plants or small animals, insects etc. Not many projects require plucking the prickles off a dead hedgehog, pressing different varieties of seaweed or collecting tiny bones from dead birds washed up on the beach! Anyway I was delighted to win the Furnishings and Artwork Section and even more delighted when a lovely lady who was my teacher in primary school bought the finished piece.

I hadn't seen the Kotuku for a while as he hadn't been to the mudflats and even the spoonbills were staying upriver and too far away to photograph. I had taken some nice shots of a pair of white faced herons though and I'd even seen a reef heron on a couple of occasions. He's a very dark bird plus quite shy so very difficult to photograph. Then one day this week Troy texted me to say someone had phoned him at the newspaper to report two white herons at the Awatapu Canal. I thought it unlikely that there were two but went to see and was delighted to find an egret feeding along the bank. This bird is quite a bit smaller than the Kotuku and lacks the fine breeding plumage on its back. Its beak is black where the Kotuku has a yellow beak during the winter, turning black during the breeding season. I got some photos of the egret but the canal is flanked by houses and he was spooked by some kids and dogs. A few days later I went back and there was the Kotuku so I got some lovely pics of him on a branch over the water. It was a stunning morning although I had to scramble over the stopbank and hike through mud, then stalk him through wet grass to get my photographs!