Widdle birrrds

Along the Whakatane Riverbank between the yacht club and the skate bowl there is a short boardwalk to the frog pond. I have visited three mornings in a row and been rewarded with some nice shots of small birds, finches, sparrows and fantails feeding and collecting nesting material among the reeds and toi toi that grows there. Its lovely on a sunny day. Once the homeless degenerates that sleep under the boardwalk have cleared out its a nice place to sit and be serenaded by the frogs and trilling & cheeping finches.

This little guy is a male greenfinch singing his little heart out to impress a chick. It works and his girlfriend turns up but...typical female is very demanding and wants him to feed her. (I can relate to that.) Its all part of the courtship thing - she needs to know he will be a good provider for their chicks plus it supplies her with the extra nutrition needed to lay the eggs etc.

This male sparrow is collecting toi toi fibres for nesting material.

A pair of goldfinches land in the bullrushes and one targets the web from a nursery spiders nest. The finch collected a beakful, flew off to wherever its nest was, then returned twice til the web was all gone. It then found another web and repeated the excercise.

What a cutie! And finally, one of my favourites - a fantail catches bugs on the wing without fear of my long lens. At time he is too close to focus on! What a great start to the day.

Mynahs have Major scrap!

I get a lot of satisfaction being in the natural environment and watching the day to day lives of our birds and other wildlife. Its a method of relaxation for me but now and then I'm reminded its not all beer and popcorn in the big wild world. On the way to my studio recently I noticed a scuffle of wings and feathers in the carpark behind the Strand shops. I pulled in and saw two mynah birds scrapping hard out.

I grabbed my camera and took a few shots but then I realised it was more than just a tiff over territory. One bird was bleeding around the head and things looked serious so I thought I'd better break it up before the loser got even more injured. I walked up to them and at the last moment they flew off but within seconds the injured bird had attacked its oponent again and they were hard out fighting again.

I took more photos til I couldn't stand it anymore and broke it up again. Within half a minute they were locked in battle again. This went on for minutes til I chased them away across the road and they chased each other along the riverbank.

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.

BirdCage Sculptures

Hey Wow, four posts in five days. I can't be working hard enough. I needed a bit of a break after my exhibition which was...well..a little disapointing in terms of sales. Thats what you get for exhibiting during the school holidays. People are too busy spending money on their children rather than on deep and meaningful paintings that match so well with the curtains. Sigh. Where are their priorities? Hard not to take it personally but I'm sure the prices will go through the roof when I'm dead so thats encouraging....uh... I think? Hey at least I'm not short of Christmas presents for the family. They say a change is as good as a break so I'm working (& I use the term loosely) on some sculptures that I plan to exhibit at the Summer Arts Festival in January 2010. Troy and I have both been invited as guest exhibitors. He's working on a fab photo series for it that have just blown me away but I'm sworn to secrecy. And I'm not going to put any pics of my finished sculptures on here yet but these are some snapshots of the works in progress. This is what I've been doing today which has involved lots of spraypainting of the cage structures themselves. As its raining I've had to do them in the garage which I've discovered does NOT constitute a well- ventilated area as specified on the instructions for use. Don't blame me if there are spelling or gramma mistakes, its the fumes I tell ya! I've killed enough brain cells with alcohol over my adult life to waste whats left on paint fumes. Unfortunately no-one told me until quite recently that if you kill brain cells they DON'T grow back!!! Aaaaaaaarrrrrggghhh! I feel quite liberated doing these sculptures because I can do them simply for the enjoyment of creating them without having to worry if anyone else is going to like them or not. Unfortunately I have to compromise my paintings sometimes because if I don't sell any I'm screwed. So the sculptures may even reflect a bit more of my gothic tendancies with just a little steampunk thrown in for good measure. Its been a revelation to discover there is a word for those kind of leanings - steampunk. Which means I'm not the only one who likes that kinda stuff. Quite reassuring really. I must look it up to see the proper definition...now I'm rambling...blame the spray paint!I guess we won't be eating off the dining room table tonight.

Baby Coots

"As you sow, so shall you reap." Well so far the slugs have eaten my beans, the birds have eaten my basil seedlings and Billy the Wonder Dog has trampled half my spinach plants on his quest to save the universe from the threat of the common bumblebee. The silly dog launches himself into the air and snaps at any bumble bee flying past despite already having been stung once and having a reaction that swole one side of his face to twice the size. So I'll be lucky to reap half of what I've sown this spring, thank God for New World.

I visited Sullivans Lake in Kopeopeo today to check out the goings on among the local birdlife. The lake edge was teeming with resident cats ogling the ducklings and the huge population of dreaded Koi Carp waving their orange tails from amidst the lilypads. There were a number of Coot nests in varying stages of development. This ones eggs were getting wet, she was trying to build the nest up around them with reeds that her mate was bringing her.

I'm always intrugued by these coot (not cute) babies. How can something this zany grow up to look like the adult coot? The chicks look more like muppets that failed the audition. But its lovely to watch both parents take such care to feed them and fiercely guard them from any other birds that get too close. One little guy had already lost half a wing to a predator I noticed.