I’ve been threatening to write about Rosie and Tony’s New Zealand South Island Adventure for well over a year now.
We have been in Northern Ireland for 18 months now and I have run out of excuses to put it off.
If the truth be known, I really enjoy looking back at the images both of us took on our trip as it brings up so many great memories and emotions. So here is the first post of my new series.
As I look back at 2020 it all seems so surreal to me now.
I honestly never thought the pandemic would last this long and rather naively thought the whole world would unite and synchronise against a common enemy and the virus would be defeated relatively quickly.
But here we are heading towards the end of January 2021 and there are more daily deaths being recorded now than when the pandemic first broke out.
However, the various vaccines developed in different countries give us hope that this year we will start to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Regardless, I hope this post finds my readers alive, kicking and full of wonderment towards our natural world and I pray that 2021 will be much better for us all.
As my longstanding readers will know, each year a friend and fellow fanatical bird photographer Steve Richards and I take off for a few weeks each Christmas. I sleep in my tent and he in his customised 4WD Toyota.
We hit the road hard out, get up early each day and go to bed late. We do our best to come back to our respective homes totally worn out. It is not a holiday for us, its an opportunity to photograph birds we don’t see closer to home. Food, comfort and sleep become secondary issues. Continue reading
This is the third post in my 2018 Christmas South Island Road Trip series with Steve Richards.
As I lay in my little tent, the cold slowly seeped through my summer weight sleeping bag and into my bones. The rain had stopped and the stars had come out and the promise of a fine morning meant a possible rematch with the Black-Fronted Terns.
But that was cold comfort for me at the time and man did I wish I had my winter sleeping bag with me.
It’s the 22nd of December for goodness sakes, it isn’t supposed to be this cold in summer.
Eventually, I drifted off to sleep and as what happens most nights, the morning arrived chasing away the darkness.
I crawled my way out of my tent to be welcomed by a pale blue sky.
Steve was all comfy in the wagon but it took little persuasion to get us back down the road to take on the birds. We were on a mission.
This is the second post in my 2018 Christmas South Island Road Trip series with Steve Richards.
This January and most of February has been spent much the same way as previous years, namely endlessly sorting and processing images from our Christmas trip.
My last post finished up with Steve and I in Blenheim preparing to travel through the 180,787 hectare Molesworth Station.
Steve and I had always been intrigued by the thought of doing the 207-kilometre trip through the Molesworth, from Blenheim to Hanmer Springs. We wanted to explore the scenery and take some landscape images.
This is the first post in my 2018 Christmas South Island Road Trip series with Steve Richards.
The Wairau Lagoons, just outside of Blenheim was to be our first port of call on our latest trip south this Christmas. We were there to find and photograph the Glossy Ibis, of which we saw only one, but it was seen at a great distance away. However, what we did see up close was heartbreaking.
An hour out from dark, cats started to make an appearance. Not just one or two but perhaps as many as half a dozen were seen as we walked back to the car.
Cute Kitten, but disastrous to bird life and Lizards.
Boney Whitefoot Nature Photography 