Skip to content →

Tag: water birds

Looking down (#38 in series: on kelp, Otago Peninsula, NZ)

 

 

The Otago Peninsula is a long” finger”, extending 20 kilometres east-ish from the second largest city on New Zealand’s South Island.

Dunedin is modest in population – a “permanent” home to little more than 130,000 people, and now #7 in NZ.

Once, however, it was the nation’s premier city.

Dunedin still feels surprisingly “grand” and “important”; culturally, this “university city” is generally considered one of NZ’s “big four”.

The Otago Peninsula’s sheltered side is the southern wall of the large, drowned valley that is Otago Harbour.

Otago Peninsula’s ocean-facing side is very much wilder.

My photo looks down from the ocean side of the Peninsula’s extremity, Taiaroa Head, which is home to the world’s only “mainland”  breeding colony of Northern Royal Albatross.

Leave a Comment

Spring 2025 in Perth, WA (#1 in series: emblematic animals)

 

 

Cygnus atratus – the black swan – is widespread over much of Australia, but is most especially associated with Western Australia.

From 1854 through to Federation in 1901 it appeared on every West Australian postage stamp.

It is still the local “heraldic beast”: prominent on WA’s flag and Coat of Arms.

This species is not endangered, and enjoys protected status in all Australian states and territories.

Black swans are mostly monogamous and both parents are very attentive to their offspring.

Breeding usually occurs in winter.

Spring is generally the best/easiest season to observe parents and cygnets on “open” water.

Comments closed

Winter 2025, South West WA (#1 in series: flying low)

 

 

At least according to European-styled calendars, spring has just begun in Australia’s southwestern corner.

Seasonal realities are in fact highly “fluid”; they do not obey calendar dates.

Whilst seasonal patterns have become progressively more “fluid”, the skies over WA’s south west have provided progressively smaller annual deliveries of actual fluid.

For the past four decades almost every annual and winter rainfall figure has been well below the long term average

in June-July-August 2025 most parts of  WA’s south west experienced their first “properly” wet 21st century winter.

Perth’s 2025 winter was the wettest of our 42 years here; only those who have lived in Perth for 68 years have experienced any (barely) wetter one.

Comments closed

“Jewel in the crown of Kashmir” (#6 in series)

 

If “your” Dal Lake houseboat is in the quieter part of the lake, you almost certainly will “feel the serenity”…at times.

You will also, there, be able to appreciate what still is an intrinsically very beautiful location.

And, before or after breakfast, without having to move beyond “your” boat’s verandah or landing, you are very likely to enjoy nice encounters with local birdlife.

Comments closed

Coorong, autumn 2024 (#17 in series: flapping)

 

At 3.13 pm on 13 March 2024 we were on our way back to Goolwa.

At that moment – forty minutes shy of the Goolwa Barrage – I loved the pictured combination of avian “group kerfuffle”, the slightly comic grace of “the lone pelican”, and the “unruffled tranquility” of the birds in the background.

Comments closed

Coorong, autumn 2024 (#10 in series: swan bomber)

 

For any photographer, attempting to “capture” a bird in flight is always a challenge.

More often than not, one does not succeed.

One is grateful that digital images can be inspected, instantly and deleted, often.

Sometimes, one “captures” something additional to what one had intended…

Comments closed