As the saying goes “time and tide wait for no man”. The passing years add to my agitation to grasp every opportunity so a stunning morning of birds at Pūkorokoro/Miranda on the way home from Auckland had nudged me to look up tide times with the idea of a day trip to catch both flights. The bird movements are controlled by the tides, following the receding and rising tide out and back to forage the mudflats. At high tide they fly in to rest and then fly out as the tide begins to drop again. This provides around a 4 hour window during which the birds arrive and then depart. A high spring tide around the full moon that coincided with the lunar eclipse gave an approximately 09h30 high tide so a plan to arrive before 07h30 meant a 05h00 departure from home.
My plans were expanded to involve 2 others so Dave and I were up early and enjoyed a drive from Rotorua, through the waking Waikato with mist shrouded depressions, planning to meet Stephen who was driving down from Auckland. Arriving at Pūkotokoro/Miranda just before 07h30 we find the gate to the parking lot chained closed, a first for me. We parked outside and walked through the pedestrian gate as the the sun crested the Coromandel to brush it’s low warmth across the reserve. Turning back I saw someone arrive on a bicycle to unlock the chain so headed back to fetch the car. Ahead I was surprised to see a Banded rail/Moho pererū emerge from the mangroves into the morning light grazing the gravel track. I grabbed a quick shot anticipating it’s imminent departure.
The anticipated departure eventuated as I sank to my knees to gain a lower perspective.
My lower position gave a reasonable image of the bird highlighted by the sun.
Circumstances were in my favour as the bird had seen the person at the gate in the sunlight while my sihouette had been concealed by a rise behind me. Staying low and still the bird was unaware of me and moved toward me and back toward the track. This is a site I have often seen them and they use the track to move between two areas of mangroved mudflats. As the bird continued its plans I was lucky to get a sequence of images with the bird picked out by lovely light in a shaded environment.
I wrote previously about when I went out hoping for Banded rail and encountered other bird opportunities instead. This visit rebalanced expectations and offered something far better than I could have achieved even if a rail had co-operated on that occasion.
I have written before about Jay Maisel’s advice in “Going out empty”. The idea being that you don’t allow preconceptions to cloud your vision and get in the way and adapting to and using what you find. On this occasion waking a little early and arriving to a locked gate gave me the opportunity to experience and record a marvellous unanticipated encounter. A happy experience that my images will always remind me of.
Photos with Nikon Z9 and Nikkor Z 800mm f6.3 VR S
