Turangi Whio

tony
October 25, 2020
birds / New Zealand

Photo of a Whio/Blue Duck resting in light rain — Whio/Blue Duck resting in light rain

As promised in last week’s post on Blue Ducklings, this week we have a few images of the adult Whio/Blue Ducks that I photographed. In total I found 10 adult Whio on the stretch of the Tongariro River that I explored. The pair with 5 ducklings featured last week. Another pair, a single duck that I saw 4 times but am sure was just a single individual as it was always near the same spot and then a group of 5 ducks a little further downstream that I think were a group of siblings.

This resting Whio was quite relaxed and tolerated a slow and low approach without distress

The trigger for this visit was a forecast suggesting cloud without rain but a brief drizzle on Sunday morning added some nice droplets to the plumage.

Morning ablutions before heading off for breakfast

After waking fully the Whio swam a metre of two downstream to another rock and preened before heading downstream.

Using the tilting LCD in LiveView to compose allows inclusion of out of focus foreground rocks

The shapes and colours of the rocks provides a perfect environment for the Whio to use their camouflage. Their shape and plumage mirrors the rounded rocks in grey with russet and it is nice to try and include these elements into the images.