Herons in lake Ohope

There is a large puddle in farmland at the side of the road before the turnoff to the Ohope Spit. Locals have nicknamed it "Lake Ohope." In the middle of summer it dries out completely but after a run of wet weather it could by some stretch of the imagination be regarded as a little lake although I think "pond" is more like it. No matter what the size it always has lovely reflections and there are often ducks, plovers, oystercatchers or stilts there. Never all at once though, and usually just a pair of birds. Yesterday there were herons feeding. Worms I'm guessing. I just had to stop to take these shots.

 

Sploosh pics

There was a freezing wind on the river this morning which kept the whitebaiters at home so the heron grabbed the number one fishing possie. Nice light for getting what I call "Sploosh" shots - the moment the bird strikes at shrimp, small fish or crabs. I call them sploosh shots cause if you were drawing it in a comic thats the caption you'd put with it! Timing is everything for both the bird and my shutter finger.

This is the painting I am working on at the moment.

Its 1.2 metres tall and the arms to the cross 25cm deep. I am not sure if the skull is from a goat or a deer, I suspect a deer. I have a handful of possible elements to include in the final design but I have to bear in mind the final composition so that they will balance the finished work. I had the whole design worked out before I started but got to this point and changed my mind. An artists perogative! I'm quite happy with it so far.

Tauranga National Art awards.

Its been a while since my last entry because November was a huge month for me. Things were going really well with my entry for the Tauranga National Art Awards. This was a painting that I was constantly challenging myself with. I put lots of research, thought, and emotion into it and felt that was coming through in the painting. It was an emotionally intense process and when I felt it was finally finished I was very happy with the result. (Most unusual!) I should have known it was too good to be true! When it came to varnishing it I had almost run out of the usual product so tried to get more but my supplier had none in stock so to cut a long story short I went with another varnish that proved far from satisfactory! I tried another product to try to get rid of a series of milky streaks but the two mediums were not compatible so I made it worse! It was ruined! Heres a photo of it before the varnish went on. At this point my mood had hit rock bottom. I was in mourning! And I had a party to organise for Troys Birthday feeling far from in a party mood. Saturday morning I prepared food and fussed around looking forward to being able to have a few wines later on. We had lots of family and friends around, had a lovely meal and then Troy said he wanted to make a speech. He asked me to stand next to him, thanked everyone, waffled on for a bit then went down on one knee and proposed to me!!! I'd had no idea this was coming. Of course I said yes! So that pulled me out of my melancholy over the painting and I went back to the studio on Tuesday mentally accepting that I would have no painting entered in the Tauranga Art Awards. Mum came to see me and spied a half finished piece leaning up in the corner. Always a source of encouragement she suggested I finish that painting for Tauranga.....the only problem was that the next day and day after were the delivery days. I had one day to complete it! I went home Tuesday night, planned the rest of the painting and put in twelve hours work on it onWednesday. I was actually really pleased with how it turned out, I must do well under pressure. We delivered it the next day and four days later I got a phone call to say it had won the Supreme Award!

Now I have commissions and a great Gallery wanting my work so lots of work to do! But as always I can find a few moments each morning to photograph my favourite birds on the saltmarsh. The whitebaiters are gone and the herons are reasserting their territorial boundaries. I took this photo which may appear to be part of an elaborate courtship ritual but is in fact a pair of males challenging each other over feeding grounds. One of them had his female mate nearby but despite this he lost to the bachelor heron. The pair were forced to retreat to the other side of the river to feed. The whole standoff lasted only seconds but I do I love this shot! The victor was the bird on the right with his head held highest.

The swallows have hatched their second brood of babies above my studio entrance which means they are twice as fierce protecting the nest! A day or so ago one of them dive bombed my head three times in quick succession and I actually felt it touch my hair. They screech and snap their beak at the moment of contact - amazing how something so tiny can become such an effective assailant! My hair stands on end and I seek shelter as fast as I can!

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!

swallows, herons, huia.

Early on in the week I went back to one of my favourite birdwatching spots on the river, the rocky outcrop behind the Whakatane Yacht Club. At first there didn't appear to be much around but then I could hear the distinctive croaking of white-faced heron. There was two of them on the roof and it became apparent they were a pair, their breeding plumage all puffed up. (The longer narrow feathers on the back.)

They flew down to the waters edge so I found a dry spot on the rock and sat down with my camera. They began feeding until a second male landed and was soon chased away by the first male. I was lucky that they were pre-occupied and took no notice of me. Later they wandered quite close and I was able to get some nice photos.

One of the best ways to photograph birds is to sit quietly in an area where they are feeding and just wait. If you are patient enough the birds will wander close and you will be rewarded with some opportunities for great shots.

The family of swallows nesting in our carport has been a source of interest over the last week or so. The babies grew so fast. Soon they could barely fit in the nest and I could see three fat chicks with yellow baby-beaks waiting keenly for their parents to return with beaks full of flying insects to eat. But one shrill screech of warning from a parent bird and they would press themselves into the bottom of the nest in an effort to hide. One day I realised they had taken off and were having flying lessons from Mum and Dad. Just short excursions at first then back to the nest. Then they went a little further afield and would land on the clothesline, watching their parents swooping and diving over their heads. Within a day or two they had almost mastered the speed and aerobatics needed to do what swallows do although they returned to the nest at nights. I'm amazed at how quickly they learnt to fly. The whole family of five were hunting for insects in the paddock, alighting on the fence and the only way I could tell them apart was that the babies had slightly shorter tails.

The Opotiki Art Society has an exhibition on at the moment. I only have one painting in it as I have lots of commissions to finish before Christmas. It is another painting of a pair of Huias.