Sun setting over Whakatane River.

About 5 pm yesterday on the Whakatane River. A Shag dries his wings. They have to do this periodically as they have no waterproofing due to the fact they spend all their feeding time under the water chasing fish. A white-faced Heron is on alert.
It is watching an approaching Hawk.

I'm not sure a Hawk would attack a full-grown Heron but I do know that Herons really don't like hawks so this one was off!

Shagging around.

One georgous morning early last week I couldn't help but stop off along the riverbank on the way to my studio. Strangely there were no whitebaiters but this Pied Shag was having a successful morning capturing a tasty looking flounder (or perhaps a sole? not really up with fish names.)

You can almost see an expression of complete surprise on the "face" of the flounder...do flounder have faces? But now I'm just being anthropomorphic which is not a trait I'm normally prone to.

There are 12 species of shags that breed in New Zealand. Below is the little black shag, not to be confused with the black shag which is...well...bigger. I love their emerald coloured eyes, strangely like the colour of the water they inhabit around the wharves on a sunny day. I took this photo on Friday morning at the Whakatane Wharf.
I spent the long weekend with family in Tauranga and on Saturday had a walk around the Mount. At the harbour entrance we paused to take in the view. A short way back along the track was a bench seat which some tourists were making good use of. Unbeknown to them there was a large colony of shags nesting in the pohutukawas above them. It wasn't long before the tourists were doused in a rather foul smelling spattering of guano (bird shit) & obviously they were not impressed. I had to wonder why they didn't notice the surrounding ground was white with shag poos, surely that would ring alarm bells? This begs the question - did someone at the Tauranga Council in the parks division have a sick sense of humour when deciding where to position the park benches? Heh heh heh.

Below is a pic I took last summer. There were thousands of little fish at the Whakatane wharf and this shag was one of a number that were chasing large shoals of them up the boat ramp. The shag would snap them up as they leapt out of the water to escape from it. I really like this photo as you can see a couple of the fish have landed on the shags back but fortunately for them he already has one in his mouth.

Shags, Caspian Terns & Spoonbill

Got no painting done today. I

had lots of organising to do for the up and coming exhibition so had lots of meetings and stuff to do today....Bleuurrggh! But my first meeting was at nine so I had a free hour beforehand. It was a strange misty kind of morning so I went to the river, the Apanui saltmarsh to be specific. I saw a whole group of shags swimming in close formation up a small stream. There was five of them, one looked a little larger than the rest so perhaps it was an adult and four juveniles but I would have thought a mum would be rid of her last brood of chicks by this time of the year. Anyway they were swimming in a really tight group and appeared to be feeding on a school of fish. I was trying to get a shot of all five of them with their heads up at the same time but they were practising unsynchronised swimming! I saw one catch a flounder and swallow it. For a bird with such a skinny neck they sure can get down some big fish!

There were about a half dozen Caspian Terns too. They are the largest of our tern species and quite cool with their bright red beaks. I was surprised to see one side by side with one of the spoonbills. They sure made a strange pair! I remember when the Kotuku was hanging around, from a distance the only way I could tell the kotuku from the spoonbills was because he wouldn't tolerate any other birds near him. He would chase off seagulls, ducks etc. The spoonbills were often mixed in with the gulls and at rest they'd hide their big goofy bills amongst

the feathers on their backs. I never saw the heron rest like that. From a distance they look like they have a yellow eye but the eye is black - that yellow is an eyebrow!