More albatross images
Off to Kaikoura last weekend with the Nelson Camera Club. Five of us went out with “Albatross Encounter” for a couple of hours. Here are a few examples, and I have posted some higher quality images on my wildlife gallery. (The first 10 images are from that trip.) We stopped not a huge distance offshore and the skipper put out a bait bag. The Cape Petrels arrive first, chattering away and making quite a din.
Albatross encounter
I had to travel down to Burwood Hospital for my regular treatment last week. I decided to combine the trip with some serious photography, starting with bird watching.
I booked a tour with “Albatross Encounters“, who operate out of Kaikoura. It’s the same company that run “Dolphin Encounters”, but more on that at the end of this post.
I got some great images. This first one is a closeup of a female Wandering Albatross, with mating plumage accentuated by a diet of shrimps and krill:
Kaikoura, seabird paradise
I spent last Sunday on the water off Kaikoura. It was a fishing trip with some old friends (the Serious Fishing Club) and some new ones.
Wandering albatross
This weekend I’m off on a fishing trip to Kaikoura. The charter boat provides all fishing gear, so I’ll just be loaded up with my photographic gear. On my last trip, I was trying out a new lens, a 300mm telephoto. It was incredibly difficult, the sea was lumpy, the autofocus kept latching onto people’s fishing rods rather than the birdlife, so most of my pics were no good. But I got lucky. I had the camera to my eye when I noticed a bird swooping in towards us. He did only one quick pass as I struggled to track him and get off a series of quick shots. Only afterwards when I studied the images did I realise just what I had captured. It was a Wandering Albatross, one of the very largest! Adults have a wingspan approaching 4 metres, with a body length of more than a metre. …