Being easily accessible Okareka is probably my most reported bird photography venue with many previous blog posts. After our early New Year visit, I was keen to return to look for more Tui in flax photos. Weather is always a controlling factor as some nice low evening light is helpful. The first planned day ended with a thunderstorm so an aborted trip. By the next opportunity most of the flowering was over so much less Tui activity.
I was lucky enough to get a couple of pictures along the lines I was hoping for. Little by way of low light but the diffused light really showed off the waxy textures of the maturing seed pods nicely. It would have been easy to feel disappointed at a missed Tui opportunity but there are always other opportunities. This next image, while scruffy is a nice documentation of the stages of flax flowering from opening blooms through to maturing seed pods. It also shows the excellent adaptation of the Tui bill to the flower shape with the stamens dusting the Tui face to pollinate the next bloom. I have previously managed to document this nicely in a series from early 2014.
On arriving at the lake I had noticed a car parked that looked as though it belonged to a bird photography friend who I hadn’t seen in a while so I had high hopes of catching up. As anticipated it was Reg’s car so it was a nice opportunity during a relative quiet day on the bird photography front. I think the busyness of the Summer holidays with the increased noise and boat traffic had pushed some of the birds away. With less than normal bird activity and especially very little by way of flying birds it was a matter of making the most of the opportunities that did offer themselves.
A beautiful young Kawau/Black Shag/Great Cormorant perched on one of the perches installed near the hide. For birding these perches are great but photographically have been a bit tragic consisting of a pair of waratahs driven into the lake bed with a fencing batten wired on top. Fortunately this perch has had the wooden part replaced with a nicely weathered piece of wood so by cropping out the vertical waratahs a pleasing perch remains.
After initially arriving this young bird had been posing nicely while drying its wings. In the foreground is a collection of grasses some overgrown with flowering Birds-foot Trefoil. Crouching down allowed the inclusion of this as an out of focus foreground element with the yellow blooms echoing the yellow facial skin of the shag.
Extending the yellow theme was a vocal Yellowhammer proclaiming his territory from dried flax stalks. While not the tidiest specimen of his species he still made a nice enough subject.
It was a little difficult to isolate him against a clean back ground and without obstruction amongst the old dry seed pods but he was so engaged in his vocal activities that he tolerated a bit of movement and positioning on my part.
I even managed to move enough to get him against the sky to achieve a couple of my Birds on White images.
In the end a trip for Tui feeding in flax ended up being only partially successful for the intended purpose but achieved a lot of unexpected pleasure, socially and photographically.
Photos with Nikon D850 and Nikon 500mm f5.6PF lens
