Silvereye Season - Rain Day

Yesterday's rain day provided a lot more interesting SIlvereye Photos than I had been bargaining on!

Looking through all the photos, I realised that most of the day, I basically had two visitors (and an occasional mystery third or forth one).

 

As you'll soon seen in the following posts, I ended up naming these two:
1) "Mohawk"
2) "Humperdink"

"Mohawk" was the main one I saw, but it turns out "Humperdink" showed up a bunch of times too. Also, I reckon that actually, both may have been juveniles (or at least Mohawk definitely was!)

Emirates "NBA" A380

Yay!  After missing its last few visits for various reasons (including being out of the country, a snowstorm, and being far away from the airport occupied with other activities), today I finally got to see the "NBA" livery A380 (A6-EOD) with my own eyes at last!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/aligorith/albums/72177720330215352/

Silvereye Season - Super Wednesday

Finally getting around to posting some of Wednesday's silvereye goodness today

Some highlights:
1) Mr and Mrs Harakeke Head

2) Check out this funky shadow cast on its head by the unopened (?) flowerheads

  

3) A different pair that happened to come at the same time but stayed apart. I love how this one looks like it's breaking the fourth wall

 

4) The juvenile - You can only tell from this photo from the slightly "fanned out" wings (i.e. whereas adults usually have those folds tightly packed, juveniles seemingly have some trouble with that, and often fan those out slightly and flutter them, along with their microtonally off-tune 3-note (f'' d#'' e'') repeating calls whenever their parents approach with food)

 

Loads MOAR pics here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/aligorith/albums/72177720330132688

Silvereye Season - Mr + Mrs Harakeke Heads

Well, this happened way earlier in the season than I had been expecting!

A BIG thank you to Mr and Mrs Harakeke Head for giving me the chance to take this shot during their lunch visit (having missed capturing them during their breakfast visit).

(Unfortunately, the image is not quite in focus - or at least not quite in the way that I really wanted, but will take this one for now, as it's better than nothing! Will try again when you next come :P)  

In case you don't know, the last few years, I've been trying to move from "single stationary birdy" into "multiple at once" and/or in motion. So being able to capture what looks like a mating pair (given how they arrived together, and happily feasted from the same flower in close proximity to each other is a relative rare thing)

Silvereye Season - Early Birds

This year the Silvereye Season officially kicked off *way* earlier than usual, with the first flowers opening last Sunday on 26th October!  (Previously, this didn't happen until after 1st November)

The first bird sighting was the next day (though I didn't get any footage of that, given it was a fleeting visit behind net curtains, with no camera on hand, and a phone that couldn't focus in time).

In the days that followed, were the first photo of one (through the net curtains) on the morning of the 29th:

 

Fast forward to this morning, when I finally got my first "proper" shots - of a "Harakeke Head" no doubt:

Birds of Feather - Birding on New Brighton Pier in Strong Winds

This is one of my favourite photos from the other day when we headed out to New Brighton over the long weekend 

I got a whole bunch of footage I'm quite happy with, but what I loved the most from this set was all the photos I got of the seagulls being able to literally hover at a fixed point in space with their wings outstretched, due to the really strong winds out there that afternoon (which seemed to really pick up by the time we were halfway along the pier)

With this particular photo, I'd been taking photos of the gulls just hanging in the air, and then I hear + see this AirNZ jet starting to turn in for a northern approach, so i knew I just had to try and line them both up together in a frame together... somehow! 😂  

Upper Riccarton War Memorial Park

Last night, I finally got around to paying the Upper Riccarton War Memorial Park a visit. It's recently been opened on the site of the former War Memorial Library, utilising a few heritage items from the former library in its design.

What was most surreal though was standing there trying to photograph this "most Kiwi" of artworks (complete with a Buzzy Bee, Anzac Donkey, and Red Poppy), while smelling the fragrant dinner-rush exhaust from the nearby Chinese restaurants!

Blast from the Past: Cathay Pacific 747 Cardboard Model Plane / Glider

When doing some long overdue cleaning of one of our bookshelves yesterday, I ran into the following fun little guy:

IIRC, it's a Cathay Pacific 747 cardboard plane model from a Meadow Fresh milk-carton promotion here in NZ. It would have been from the mid-late 90's (as it uses the "brush tick" tail).

(At least that's what I think it's from! I could be wrong, with it potentially having come from an in-flight activities pack for kids instead, since I do have a few of those... somewhere...)

 

The Last Lunch

Wow, it's been 5 years ago to the day when this photo was taken.

Yum Cha at "Tai Chi" (Spitfire Square, Christchurch) in March 2020

 

It was from our last "dine in" meal at a restaurant before the first COVID lockdown (that we headed out for shortly after Ardern's first 1pm nationwide address).

This photo then went on to be one that I wound up staring at longingly for *months*, desperately craving some Cheng Fun (and being unable to make any ourselves). You could say it got me through the pandemic...

C17 Landing at NZCH - 2025 02 24

Here are bunch of heavily-edited snaps from the C17 (8202) landing at NZCH earlier this week that I quite like.

I really love the combination of dramatic lighting, tyre smoke, and the funny look on the faces of those sheep - especially on that second one!

Had to heavily edit to improve colour + contrast - mainly to just bring out a bit more colour from all the washed-out / desaturated light and dark areas (which were a consequence of shooting into the sun near sunset... granted, the lighting would conventionally be better considered "better" from the other side, but the roads on that side are scary, and you wouldn't get to see the smoke backlit like this either!)

Silvereye Season 24 + Different Types of Silvereye Calls

Every year, November marks "Silvereye Season" - the month where the bottlebrush outside my window blooms, and the silvereyes come jauntily swooping in to feast on the nectar, pulling all manner of cute and adorable acrobatics. Sadly, this year's season has been heavily interrupted + restricted by a series of home renovations we've been doing that just happened to need to coincide with this month... *sigh*

 

As a result, this year, I've been limited to only getting a literal handful of very short shooting windows this year, and an even smaller number of OK photos, of which the ones above are probably the sum total...

(There were also a bunch of early ones where I managed to capture 2-3 staging a surprise visit just when I got home... but those aren't that great quality due to only having a short zoom + wrong camera settings on an afternoon with very average lighting, so I won't be posting those online)

You may also notice that the colours are a bit punchier than usual, as I've also been forced to trial a new photo processing pipeline (i.e. Darktable) as noted in a previous post.

My Second/Third Ever Aurora Sighting

Wow! I was finally rewarded again tonight after multiple attempts over the past few nights (and multiple ones earlier in the evening - when others had been reporting lots of successful sightings)... but to no avail until this last-ditch attempt for the night.

More highlights from this show just after midnight here in suburban Christchurch on the night of the 12/13th August 2024 can be found in the following album:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/aligorith/albums/72177720319476435/

Tui at Wellington Botanic Gardens

Didn't have as much luck getting a good photo of the Tui's, despite seeing way more of them (and actually running into one of them first).

This one is one of the better ones. 

Kaka at Wellington Botanic Gardens

Was pleasantly surprised to discover last weekend that Wellington's Botanic Gardens (up the top of the Cable Car) turns out to be quite a bird-watching heaven - with Tui, Keruru, and Kaka all hanging out up there without having to head all the way out to Zealandia!

Here are some of my favourite shots of the Kaka. Reposting from Mastodon for posterity.

(Disclaimer: Slim pickings, as I didn't have my bird lens with me, and it kept hiding in the canopy). 

1) Inquisive kaka with food on its beak - This is perhaps my favourite shots of the bunch

Grey Warbler (Riroriro) - First successful photo

Came home today to the sound of a grey warbler (riroriro) sporadically singing away in a tree. Think I may have finally captured a photo of the elusive bird with the beautiful high-trilling song!

Playing with the exposure, it becomes clear that it has stunning red eyes, confirming its identity. Luckily, everything came together to make this happen today!

 

Juvenile Silvereyes

Wheee! This afternoon, I came home to the sound of juvenile silvereyes excitedly crying for food. I rushed inside, mounted the bird lens, and looked up at the tree armed with some proper gear. I'm glad I did, as it turns out there were 3 of them in an adorable huddle, and not just the single fat one I thought I'd seen earlier!  😊

Cross posted for archival purposes from Mastodon

Saturday Photowalk - Recent changes around the Arts Centre...

With fine sunny weather today (sandwiched between two days of chilly, showery, wintery weather) it was a great day to get out and about, and away from my desk for a few hours. It ended up being a nice afternoon to take a walk around the Arts Centre for the first time in ages - between the first wave of Omicron, and our very own "Camp Covid" from the rabid "Freedumbs" crowd just around the corner, it's been a while since I've been to this part of town. 

 

Here are some highlights from the afternoon. Unfortunately, I only had my phone with me today, though things turned out relatively ok in the end I guess...

Spring is Here - Late August Weekend of Daffodils and Birding

The weather's been a nice and balmy 20-22 C this weekend here this weekend - perfect weather to get out and about to enjoy the daffodils and some bird stalking!

Silvereye Season Highlights 2019

Every November, the Silvereyes come to visit the bottlebrush right outside my window, putting on a show of daring acrobatics, cheerful chirping, and occasional clumsy antics. For the past decade, it's been one of the photographic highlights of the year for me (and a big reason why I got into photography in the first place).

Good Morning!

While this year, I couldn't spend the whole day plonked in front of the window keeping an eye of them, I was lucky that the times I was around (e.g. early morning, before rushing out the door to get to work, and when unwinding after a long day at work) turned out to be the times when some of the most interesting lighting/activities happened anyway ;)

SOFIA Flying Observatory Visit

It was great getting the chance to tour NASA's SOFIA flying observatory this weekend on the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing!