Tuesday 8 March 2011

"In Celebration of Hihi" (Stitchbird) Week - Tiritiri Matangi Island

While Sav is still compiling the trip report from the Three Kings pelagic, and I sort through the photos etc., I thought I would quickly post a few photos from my week on Tiritiri Matangi Island last September (2010).  I have loaded an album onto my Eco-Vista: Photography & Research (www.eco-vista.com) Facebook page with 125 of my favourite images I took during the week.  I was out there with my good mates John Ewen and Kevin Parker, partly in anticipation of the "In Celebration of Hihi" (Stitchbird) Week which starts in just a few days.  This is a week long exhibition of art work, with several of my images taken during this trip being displayed and for sale.  More information can be found on the Tiri Supporters website and if you haven't yet planned anything for this coming weekend and live near Auckland it could be a good thing to do.

The trip out there in September had pretty wild weather, as can be seen from the photos, but managed to get some pretty stunning images during the time anyway. This was my first trip away with my new Canon 1D MkIV so was a real learning curve with this new body. John and Kevin (and PhD student Leila Walker) were there mainly conducting the hihi census prior to the start of the breeding season.  John works for the Institute of Zoology in London and they have set up a Hihi Conservation website which has lots of info on the bird and islands.

Windy cabbage trees

Whitehead in flowering manuka (tea tree)

Basket fungi

Male stitchbird (hihi) showing off his ear-tufts

Male stitchbird (hihi)

Puffed up male bellbird

Female stitchbird (hihi) with tail cocked

Male stitchbird (hihi) hiding in the vegetation

Tree fern frond (koru)

Cabbage trees in amongst flowering manuka

Male stitchbird (hihi) in blur flight

Morepork on its roost during the day

North Island kokako feeding on leaves

Whitehead in an interesting pose

A stormy afternoon

Cabbage trees on a stormy afternoon

And again...

And again...the wind kept blowing!

Fluffed up male bellbird with rain droplets

Still stormy!

Peekaboo - a morepork peers from its daytime roost

Pukeko in the sunlight

North Island robin at its nest with chicks

Female stitchbird (hihi) 'feeding' the robin chicks!  First time such behaviour has ever been observed.

The moon from Tiri

No comments:

Post a Comment