Nankeen Night Heron

[ledzep]

Standing for an hour watching trees at dusk was rewarded with views of the Nankeen Night Heron near Whanganui River. The photo isn't very good because it was nearly dark. I saw 5 birds, Peter Frost recorded 8, so they are doing well. We had permission to view from private land as they have changed their roosting place.

NightHeron1.jpg (75.32 KiB) Viewed 3510 times

NightHeron.jpg (69.95 KiB) Viewed 3510 times

White Heron at Foxton Beach, this was beside the trees on Holben Parade near the large information sign for Birders. The bird was wandering around the pond not far away from the kids skateboarding and playing tennis. It followed me back to the car unexpectedly (as in wanting food!).

IMG_7685.JPG (87.51 KiB) Viewed 3510 times

[Rewi]

Nice one mate. I like the way you've photoshopped the selective crop from the frame to lift the shadows and restore the warmth of the colour balance, losing little definition! Did you do the shadow/highlights manually or did you use the 'Auto smart Fix' one-touch correction? Great result. What camera? I'm guessing it must be an SLR with lots of magapixels, as the image doesn't seem to show much degradation when magnified?
As for the birds - you lucky lot! I went down to see the Night Herons last year, and spent eight nights out, staring intently into the tree. The kind landowner also let me walk down to the creek edge, but when nothing was seen I withdrew back up onto the road to get an overview. On the eighth night, just one single bird slipped silently out of the tree and flew directly away down the river like the silhouette of a floating ghost. None ever revealed themselves on the branches, and it was so dark that I only saw it as it passed the reflection of the moon on the water. Truly a mysterious and totally nocturnal bird. But sometimes I wish I could just drive up, tick off, and leave !!
all the best
Rewi

[ledzep]

I just used the auto one-touch correction in Photoshop. It works magic. The dim light has affected quality, but the birds don't like revealing themselves during the day. We were able to make out one birds during daylight on a branch of the tree near the top, but it was hard to pick out.
Camera EOS 350 8 Mpixels, w ith 400 mm lens. On a tripod.
The question is, where do they feed at night? With some night vision binoculars you may be able to spot them. They probably don't go down river very far. Otherwise we need to fix a gps round the neck of one of the birds and track them.

[iain johnson]

Bill Abbott and I made the long trip south for the night herons this weekend and were rewarded for our efforts with upto eight birds showing well, albeit in failing light which resulted in Bill getting less than perfect shots. I think we were in position from about three pm onwards and the first bird showed just after six, or approximately 15 minutes after sunset.

Thanks to Peter Frost and Paul Gibson for taking the time to show Bill and I these fantastic birds.