And some more...

Obstacles

As a photographer I often find the bird exhibits at the zoo very frustrating. I understand why they can't have glass for the viewing area of the birds(they would fly into it and hurt themselves), but that doesn't make it any easier to photograph them. Walk in avairies are so much better! However I have found a way to shoot through the wire netting and still get an acceptable image. I might look a bit silly when I am doing it but the result isn't bad.

Bay of Islands - Day Twelve

We have been trying to get to the Parot Place for a while now and today we finally managed it. From the outside it doesn't look like much but inside there are birds everywhere! They have some birds just flying free and others in avairies. There are two large walk-in avairies where we were able to get up close to the birds.

Wild Weather

We had a meeting planned with friends at the Magpie Lawn at the Botanical Gardens yesterday. I had never been to that particular part of the park so took my camera along with me 'just in case' I found something of interest to photograph. The weather yesterday morning was wild to say the least - the wind was really strong and accompanied by rain for the most part. Thankfully by 4pm when we were to meet it had cleared somewhat and there was no rain.

So we found the Magpie Lawn (which had no magpies anywhere!) and our friends were already there enjoying a picnic. I looked around to see if there were any birds about to photograph. I could hear a few Tui and another bird that I wasn't sure of but that was about it. The wind had obviously chased them to calmer areas of the park. Then I saw a bird land on the ground in front of me - quite a distance in front of me I might add, and by the time I got close enough to lift the camera it had flown up into a tree.

I am sure the birds have this pact with each other. Every time they see me they stay just out of reach of my lens. They tease me and flit past with such speed that it is impossible to focus on them, let along push the shutter on the camera. I did manage to get this one shot with full zoom and still the Rosella managed to turn its back on me.

I wandered around looking hopefully into the trees and eventually gave up. But there were other interesting things about. There was a bumble bee busy with flowers, some pretty wild roses and what I know as 'shivery grasses'. So all was not lost, I got my photography fix for the day. I have a kids portrait shoot in another park this afternoon so watch this space for some fun playground shots.