Pukeko (purple swamp-hen). Image: Su Leslie 2020
birds
Silent Sunday
Stationary, and not
Gulls, Muriwai, NZ. Image: Su Leslie 2020
Although the weather’s turned a bit meh, our craving for fish and chips got the better of us last night. And the fact that the best place to buy them is two thirds of the way between our house and Muriwai Beach meant that a picnic was in order.
As usual, within about three seconds of us opening the wrapping, the birds arrived. First the sparrows, then the gulls. And while the sparrows just hop up as close as they dare and look pleadingly, these gulls tried the alternate approaches of dive-bombing and studied nonchalance.
Neither worked. And the food was delicious.
Elusive
Tui feeding in kowhai tree. Image: Su Leslie 2019
Maybe I’m stretching the definition of elusive a bit here. Tui are abundant in our garden at the moment, with record numbers feeding on the kowhai, flax and fuchsia in the neighbourhood.
Photographing them is a different matter. Today is the first time I’ve managed to get close enough to focus my lens on the birds and not just the foliage.
Images: Su Leslie 2019
A casualty of someone’s fishing trip
Pied Shag with fish-hook and line embedded in its neck. Injuries caused by discarded fishing line and hooks are amongst the most common and serious for sea-birds. Image: Su Leslie 2019
All lined up
Seagulls, Herald Island Wharf, Auckland, NZ. Image: Su Leslie 2019
There are always a couple of renegades — wonder what they see?
Distinguished
Hisan, an adolescent karearea or native falcon, seen at Wingspan Birds of Prey Trust, Rotorua, NZ. Image: Su Leslie 2017
Hisan, adolescent karearea, or NZ native falcon. Image: Su Leslie 2017
Karearea, like most native birds in Aotearoa New Zealand, evolved in the absence of humans and other mammal predators. These days, their survival is threatened by widespread habitat loss and degradation, cats, stoats and possums which eat their eggs, deliberate killings by humans, and electrocution, which happens when they land on un-insulated power lines.
Like so many species, the very survival of these beautiful, distinguished-looking birds is threatened, despite the work of several organisations dedicated to birds of prey preservation.
Posted to the Ragtag Daily Prompt | distinguished
References:
Regular Random: five minutes with some sparrows
I’m not a huge fan of sparrows, but it was quite entertaining watching a little posse of them brazenly trying to share my lunch recently.
Regular Random is a photo challenge hosted by Desley Jane at Musings of a Frequently Flying Scientist. Please pop over and take a look; and if you’d like to join in:
- choose a subject or a scene
- spend five minutes photographing it – no more!
- try to not interfere with the subject, instead see it from many angles, look through something at it, change the light that’s hitting it
- have fun!
- tag your post #regularrandom and ping back to Desley’s post.
“You have food? Seriously? We hadn’t noticed”
It may not look like it, but these guys were very busy trying to catch some crumbs of my lunch, while trying to look totally indifferent to it.
Posted to the Ragtag Daily Prompt | busy
Leisurely breakfast
Kereru (wood pigeon) in ti kouka (cabbage tree). Image: Su Leslie 2019
I almost didn’t reach for my camera when a kereru swooped down on our cabbage tree this morning.
Normally by the time I’ve got the lens cap off and focused the camera, the bird has flown.
But not today.
The fruit must have been very appetizing because I actually had time to swap lenses and capture a bunch of shots before I had to dash off to an appointment.
Kereru (native wood pigeon) in ti kouka (cabbage tree). Image: Su Leslie 2019
