Today’s post sees a last minute change of plan. An overnight hard drive failure means that the images I had ready to share are off line until I restore them from backup, so rather than do all of that before posting I thought I would share some fun I have had recently with a Black Fantail. 

New Zealand Fantails come in two colour morphs, the common pied version and the rarer black version. In the South Island the Black Fantail is not uncommon with up to 5% being this colour morph. In the North Island they are rare, to the point that I have not previously seen one in 29 years. While out mountain biking we were stopped for a water break when I saw a dark fantail flying over a logged area foraging. It was backlit so I was unsure if it was just lighting or whether it actually was a Black Fantail. Moving to get the light in our favour it was clearly a Black Fantail.

We returned with cameras and long lenses 2 days later but a cold spell meant there was little insect activity and we only located the bird  foraging in the bush with some difficulty, managing a couple of record shots. Returning another day we found it foraging in the original area and I have seen it now a number of times. I’ve had a few opportunities to photograph it, even taking a flash on one occasion as the low light makes it a challenge to photograph small hyperactive birds with a long lens in low light.

The flash allowed me to work at a lower ISO but causes significant issues with “steel-eye” (the avian equivalent of red eye) which adds a little to the imaging editing to manage.

For more info on New Zealand Fantails see nzbirdsonline. I have a theory that it is the ones that are really good at Fantail rugby that get to wear All Black feathers but cannot find any support for this on nzbirdsonline!

All photos with Nikon D500 and 500mm f4VR lens. Flash photo with Nikon SB900 and SD-9 external battery pack for rapid recycling.