Yesterday saw the start of Daylight Saving Time 2019 and the longer evenings are worth celebrating with an extra post (or maybe just an early post depending on how busy this coming weekend is). I recently posted about Spring arriving despite the weather still being quite chilly and Daylight Saving Time is another step in the right direction for longer days.

Lake Okareka always gives a worthwhile image or two and this trip was no exception. The first subject was a White-faced Heron crouched in a patch of still water with Smelt causing little ripples all around.

His intense stare was punctuated by episodic plunges that returned a wriggling Smelt 3 out of 4 attempts. He was tolerant of my slow and low approach and continued fishing until a light aircraft decided that circling low over the lake was a good idea and disturbed a lot of birds.

Moving further along the edge I concealed myself amongst the reeds and enjoyed watching the birds who became oblivious to my presence with Pied Stilts and Canada Geese approaching closely. This shot of a Pied Stilt flying in to land next to me illustrates the benefit of a full frame camera body. This is almost the entire frame and a crop sensor body would have missed the shot by clipping wings and legs.

Being Spring the Canada Geese are in full pairing up mode displaying and fighting for space and mates. This next sequence shows one of these conflicts that occurred in a convenient spot to photograph.

All photos with Nikon D850 and Nikon 500mm f5.6PF lens