Some birds are extremely protective of their nests and will do whatever it takes to distract you from it if you get too close. I had this happen last night when I went out just before sunset with my camera. Usually the pied stilts will disappear when I show myself and they will avoid the camera where possible. On this occasion they actually came closer to me and almost posed! Well most of them did, a couple slowly sauntered off in different directions and happily settled back on their nests believing me to be sufficiently distracted that I wouldn’t notice.
As it happens I did notice and now that I know where the nests are I will make a point of visiting often in the hope of capturing images of the chicks when they hatch. I am not about to disturb or upset the birds but now I know where they are I can take more care on my approach and hopefully blend in to the background a little easier. I love the reflections on the water and last night there were some interesting ones, so I made the most of the opportunity.
Not far away from the pied stilts I saw a couple of ducks and photographed them mainly because I like the colour of the setting sun on the water. It wasn’t until I was processing the images that I realised that their head shapes were a little different to the normal duck and their eyes were bright red. I hopped off to nzbirdsonline.org.nz to identify them and found that they are Grey Teal ducks. All the times I have been there I have never noticed them before. I am going to start looking at the ducks with a little more care in future. As we were leaving I spotted a tui having fun in the flax flowers. His beak and head were covered in pollen.
