Caught in the Act, Mr Kereru!

After several days of landscape and night blips, I thought it was about time to leave the wide angle lens in the bag, grab the telephoto and head out in search of some wildlife.

So, this afternoon I went on a prowl in the garden. Earlier in the day, Mrs H and I were sat at the kitchen table when a cock pheasant waltzed casually across the back lawn. I thought I might be able to spot him, so I headed in the direction he took.

Instead of a pheasant, I spotted this kereru in the kowhai tree, stripping the juicy buds and leaves. The feasting wood pigeon was too busy stuffing his beak to worry about the encroaching human with the long lens, so I was able to get as close as my lens would focus, less than two metres from the bird, to get this shot of him amongst the kowhai.

If you go large, you might just be able to see the reflections of the hills in his eye.

To get even closer shots, I had fitted my 2x teleconverter to the 120-300mm lens. Unfortunately it doesn't register on the EXIF info, so this is actually shot at 600m f/8.