As mentioned last week, Okareka is recovering after the high water levels have receded and I have been having great fun chasing birds there again. I couldn’t go past sharing some images again as I have been up a few times in the past 2 weeks and every visit yields something unexpected and good. 

The jetty at the boat ramp is ideal for getting a good low angle on the Dabchicks ad Coots. There is a short window of good light that is lost well before the boardwalk is best so if things are quiet at the ramp from a boating perspective it is worth a stop.

The boardwalk is always worth visiting. I always seem to get an image or two that give me pleasure. The light can be fabulous, if brief, but there are always some options on water birds and birds in flight. After work on Friday I popped up for a quick look despite being so far behind in my image editing that I really cannot justify creating more images before clearing at least some of the backlog. I bumped into fellow bird photographer, Reg Quinn, who is doing some fantastic work with a Canon 400mm f5.6 DO lens with 2x teleconverter. The lake was rougher than ideal but Reg managed a beautiful shot of a Pied Stilt against a dark background that will process up very nicely.

As we were leaving after the light went a pair of Grey Teal flew by and from reflex more than anything I tracked them and shot a few frames despite my camera still being set for the brighter light that had gone. The preview was pretty dark but I was hopeful of pulling something out of the raw files as the scene had some nice colours. I will share the results of this next week once I have had a chance to process the files.

Photos all taken from the boat ramp jetty with Nikon D500 and Nikon 500mm f4 VR with TC14 teleconverter.