Sunday, November 14, 2010

Gannets at Cape Kidnappers

Foreign tourists are great for the economy, they spend lots of money touring around New Zealand. The tourist operators just love them. But spending a couple of hours on a small bus with one in particular that asked as many dumb questions of our driver as there are stars in the sky on a clear night, just about drove us all mad. It is amazing that we managed to concentrate on the task of photographing the gannets when we finally reached the plateau colony.
 

To get to the gannet colony we had to drive overland (in air conditioned four wheel drive buses) through Summerlee Station (also known as Cape Kidnappers Station). On the way through our tour guide (driver) told us lots of interesting information about the station and how it had changed over the years. He had spent his whole life living and working on the station and it was very clear to us just how much the place meant to him. It made for a more personal view of the area which was much better than just listening to a scripted guide. Well it would have been if it wasn't for the dumb questions from the front of the bus!


We had the most glorious weather yesterday when we visited the birds, it couldn't have been better. Very little wind, brilliant warm sunshine. On the way home today it was windy and raining - quite the contrast, so we definitely picked the better of the two days. I spent a lot of time trying to capture the perfect flying bird shot. It is not an easy task when they come in so fast and land so awkwardly. It's like they just zoom in and then fall out of the sky, nothing graceful about the gannets landing that's for sure!



We didnt' see any chicks this trip, we were a little bit early. The tour guide told us that the chicks were expected to hatch any time now, and we did see some eggs. The birds incubate the eggs under their webbed feet, it was really interesting watching them wrap their feet around them before settling down. There were still a lot of birds without eggs mating. I am not sure if these were mature birds or young ones on their first trip back to the nesting colony. The plan now is to make another trip back to the plateau colony in early January when there should be plenty of chicks about for us to photograph.


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