Been shopping!

I haven't been out with the camera yet today so thought I would post a few more from Friday night. The batteries are charging for the new camera (Canon 7D) but I only have one smallish card until the new ones arrive from Ascent on Tuesday. I am looking forward to trying it out as soon as the batteries are done!

There are a lot of scruffy looking kingfishers flying about at the moment. I look forward to them all finishing their moulting or whatever they are doing, as I know they will be way more impressive to photograph when they have their proper colours. Not that I am complaining, I love their scruffy looks too.

The white-faced herons never fail to put on a show for me when I am sitting at the beach. It is hard not to take yet another shot of them. Below is a speeding bullet on wings. These guys move so fast and you can see the determination on their faces that they WILL get their prey!

A mixed bag...

Yesterday afternoon I headed back over to Pauatahanui with the intention of photographing more kingfishers. Unfortunately I forgot to check the tides first so arrived there about thirty minutes away from high tide. Normally there isn't much to see around this time, or so I thought, but I am stubborn and decided to sit it out and wait.

It wasn't long before I noticed a couple of Caspian Terns flying past the car and landing some distance from me. One of them was squawking a lot and the other was hovering above with a small fish in its beak. Instinctively I picked up the camera and photographed the event. The images are not that great because of the distance but I have to tell you it was fascinating to watch!

After that I saw lots of Caspian Terns out fishing in the channel, they would fly high always looking downwards, then dive for their dinner before flying back low to the water. It was almost like a dance but again, a little too far away for me to record.

As the tide started to go out the usual suspects started arriving in their usual order. Swans and geese first, followed by the white-faced heron and then the pied stilts. The spur-winged plovers fly past making lots of noise but didn't settle anywhere close.

I had decided that six o'clock was my cut of time, and as I had already been there for a couple of hours I had to stick to that. The kingfishers hadn't shown up yet but I was resigned to not seeing them as the tide was still too far in. I was proven wrong yet again, five minutes before I packed up my gear a kingfisher fly into reach of the lens. He didn't stay long and but I did manage to get a few shots before he left again.  All in all it was a mix bag of images that I ended up with but worth the trip out there.