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The Manawatu estuary at Foxton beach is one of the best places in the lower North Island to see a variety of shore birds and waders. It's one of the places were our Arctic migrants can regularly be seen over summer including the bar tailed godwit, Pacific golden plover and lesser knots.The photos below are from a brief visit on my way down to Wellington at the end of March. All photos were taken with the new Nikor 500mm f5.6 PF lense fitted with a 1.4 teleconverter.A white fronted tern ( …

I had a wonderful walk along the coast from Bell Block beach to the Waiongana river mouth this morning. It's about an hours walk along the beach only accessible at low tide. You often have to cross several boulder fields but today they were all covered in sand making it an easy walk.  It's a great section of cost to see birds with the Waiongana river mouth being home to a dotterel nesting site and with oyster catcher, white faced heron and shags nearly always somewhere along the coast on th …

One of my favourite locations for bird photography around New Plymouth is the Waiwhakaio river mouth. It's only a small wetland area but we get a good variety of birds here. Unfortunately the New Plymouth District Council are currently threatening to revoke the reserve status of some of this land and sell it off for housing development. Further urban encroachment will directly impact on the bird populations in this fragile area so if you live in New Plymouth I would encourage you to make a su …