I spend a lot of my time at Tāwharanui at night. Or if it’s during the day, I’m working around the seabird colonies checking trail cameras and nest boxes. But Tāwharanui is also a fabulous place for bird photography, and I’ve done surprisingly little of it!

A few weekends ago I cam back from the Poor Knights islands after an intense 10-day trip of night work. It coincided with my parents being up north on holiday, so we met up for the weekend and decided to do picnics and bush walks at Tāwh to make the most of the summery weather.

The newly redone Ecology bush trail is through beautiful lowland forest, winding through a valley of nīkau palms and pūriri up into a dryer kauri forest on the hill. It’s studded with birds, vocal tīeke and kākā, kererū and pōpokatea, bossy tūī and curious pīwakawaka. It was such a refreshing change to see the forest during the day!

We picnicked by the beach and spent time photographing the pāteke and tūturiwhatu on the shoreline. For the first time in a while, I really enjoyed just relaxing into photography and spending time with birds – no rush, no goals, just being and observing.

All the bird names in this post are in Te Reo Māori – click the name to visit the nzbirdsonline.org.nz page about each species!

The tree names link to The Meaning of Trees website – visit for more information about our native flora!