{"id":19757,"date":"2026-04-05T06:27:55","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T18:27:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/?p=19757"},"modified":"2026-04-05T08:24:28","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T20:24:28","slug":"serendipity-in-bird-photography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/archives\/19757","title":{"rendered":"Serendipity in Bird Photography"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Banded<\/a>
Banded rail\/Moho perer\u016b<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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 P\u016bkorokoro\/Miranda<\/a> 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<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 P\u016bkotokoro\/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\u2019s 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 perer\u016b emerge from the mangroves into the morning light grazing the gravel track. I grabbed a quick shot anticipating it’s imminent departure.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Banded<\/a>
Banded rail\/Moho perer\u016b emerging from the mangroves<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The anticipated departure eventuated as I sank to my knees to gain a lower perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Banded<\/a>
Banded rail\/Moho perer\u016b heading back to the mangroves<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

My lower position gave a reasonable image of the bird highlighted by the sun.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Banded<\/a>
Banded rail\/Moho perer\u016b in sunrise light<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Banded<\/a>
Banded rail\/Moho perer\u016b in sunrise light<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
\n
\"Banded<\/a>
Banded rail\/Moho perer\u016b in sunrise light<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Banded<\/a>
Banded rail\/Moho perer\u016b in sunrise light<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

I have written before about Jay Maisel’s advice in “Going out empty”<\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photos with Nikon Z9 and Nikkor Z 800mm f6.3 VR S<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Serendipity in Bird Photography – a locked gate, instead of being an obstacle, facilitates a special opportunity <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19765,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Serendipity in Bird Photography","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[982,3,29,17,19,1001],"tags":[1377,26,25,144,247,1021,221,983,609,194,190,1079],"class_list":["post-19757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bird-photography","category-birds","category-new-zealand","category-tips","category-travel","category-wildlife","tag-banded-rail","tag-bird-photography","tag-birds","tag-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand-bird","tag-nikkor-z-800mm-f6-3-vr-s","tag-nikon","tag-nikon-z9","tag-nikonnz","tag-photo","tag-photography","tag-pukorokoro-miranda","entry","has-media"],"yoast_head":"\nSerendipity in Bird Photography - 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Good flocks of Godwits but light and tide conspired against bird photography. 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Those were the days before digital photography and fishing was the priority so the sleeping space was shared with a quiver of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "birds"","block_context":{"text":"birds","link":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/archives\/category\/birds"},"img":{"alt_text":"Bar-tailed Godwit flying up the Waipu Estuary to feed.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Bar-tailedGodwit-DSC_6855-web.jpg?fit=960%2C640&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Bar-tailedGodwit-DSC_6855-web.jpg?fit=960%2C640&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Bar-tailedGodwit-DSC_6855-web.jpg?fit=960%2C640&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Bar-tailedGodwit-DSC_6855-web.jpg?fit=960%2C640&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":9867,"url":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/archives\/9867","url_meta":{"origin":19757,"position":4},"title":"Farewell Spit Gannets","author":"tony","date":"April 14, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"In my last post on our Farewell Spit Tour I mentioned that the Gannet Tour visiting the colony at the tip of Farewell Spit was unavailable due to timing of tides. I had rationalised missing out on this by wondering what the point was of photographing more Gannets as I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "birds"","block_context":{"text":"birds","link":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/archives\/category\/birds"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Gannets-D5C_0566-web.jpg?fit=960%2C640&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Gannets-D5C_0566-web.jpg?fit=960%2C640&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Gannets-D5C_0566-web.jpg?fit=960%2C640&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Gannets-D5C_0566-web.jpg?fit=960%2C640&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":13388,"url":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/archives\/13388","url_meta":{"origin":19757,"position":5},"title":"New Year 2021","author":"tony","date":"January 3, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Making a start to 2021 with local bird photography, Lake Okareka and Mount Maunganui.","rel":"","context":"In "birds"","block_context":{"text":"birds","link":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/archives\/category\/birds"},"img":{"alt_text":"Photo of a T\u016bturiwhatu\/New Zealand Dotterel on Mount Maunganui main beach","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/NZDotterel-D5C_4075-web.jpg?fit=960%2C640&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/NZDotterel-D5C_4075-web.jpg?fit=960%2C640&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/NZDotterel-D5C_4075-web.jpg?fit=960%2C640&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/NZDotterel-D5C_4075-web.jpg?fit=960%2C640&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19757"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19967,"href":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19757\/revisions\/19967"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}