Blog

It's still officially winter, but the cherries have blossomed early and it seems like spring. The garden is full of birds with 30 or 40 tui in the cherry trees drinking nectar and chasing each other around. The tui are very territorial and defend the cherry trees chasing other birds out. A game of chase has developed between the tui and the silvereye.The tui tend to feed in the top of the tree and the silvereye keep sneaking into the bottom branches until the tui spot them and chase them out. Th …

We've got plenty of small birds in the garden at the moment. There always seems to be a flock of silvereye (tauhou) around somewhere either in the trees or in the hebes and there's always a couple of fantails (piwakawaka) flitting around.  More elusive are the grey warbler (riroriro) which I often see flitting around in the shadows but are much more difficult to photograph.  I always get a thrill when I get a good shot of a grey warbler, they never sit still and at best you get two sec …