Pied Shags

The intent today was to go back to the Kingfishers, however the tides were against us and it was too cold for the Kingfishers to be out and about. So after photographing the odd shag on an unusual perch, we headed out to Makara.

We set ourselves up in the flight path of the shags and did our best to capture birds in flight. I figured this would be good practice for when I head up to Cape Kidnappers to photograph the gannets. It took me a while to work out the best settings on the camera to achieve what I was after, but I did manage to get some shots that I am pleased with.  The shags were very obliging, heading off past us every ten minutes or so.

We saw one hawk while we were there, he was being chased off by a pair of magpies. Once they disappeared out of site he came back for a brief fly over. I didn't get a close up of him because he was just too far away.