Edin’s recent visit home included 2 “must do” activities. Firstly, mountain biking in the forest and secondly, photographing at Okareka. Mountain biking is an easy tick and we managed it every day. Conditions gave us one evening at Okareka and as always it didn’t disappoint, despite the hoped for calm water not eventuating.

There were a good number of Tete moroiti/Grey teal and a few pairs of Kuruwhengi/Australasian shovelers. Both species are often quite wary but we managed some images in the late afternoon light. For the shovelers I shot images focussed on each of the birds and then combined them in Heliconfocus as a stacked image shown at the top of the post.

There are often good numbers of Piwakawaka/NZ Fantails and this evening was no exception with many hawking tiny midges above the manuka trees. Lining up a dark background with the backlit birds and midges gave a few nice images.

A bit like pan blurs, photographing fantails in flight is a low yield activity but I was lucky to capture a few usable images including some with 2 birds relatively sharply focussed.

This is a scenario I must revisit when the conditions occur again.

There is often a covey of California quail near the path to the lake and we encountered them when leaving in the fading light. It still amazes me the quality of image that can be achieved in low light with vibration reduction, modern sensors at high ISO and processed with AI noise reduction software. In this case DxO PureRAW4 but Lightroom is now little different.

Photos with NikonZ9 and Nikkor Z 800mm f6.3 VR S.