Storm Bird

Eco city to ghost town

Photos of Caofeidian, a Chinese 'eco-city' that's become a ghost town.

The idea of an eco-city is ridiculous. There's nothing 'eco-friendly' about a development that destroys a natural space, and replaces it with concrete, steel, glass and bitumen.

A flat and mushy sort of day

The Guardian describes Darren Almond's landscape photographs, taken at night with long exposures, as "astonishing" and "ethereal". With a couple of exceptions (Fullmoon@Cape Verde, 2013, and Fullmoon@Esk River, 2013) they don't do much for me. This is because the photos look as though they were taken during the day.

The essence of night is mystery. At night even the most mundane landscape is transformed into something strange and otherworldly. Night reveals things that we do not usually see, in particular the moon, planets, meteors, stars, and galaxies. It hints at things we can never really 'get', like the alien atmospheres of other worlds, the vastness of interstellar distances, our insignificance in the infinite cosmos. 

For night photos, darkness is the key ingredient. Almond's long exposures burn away the darkness, turning night into day, a flat and mushy sort of day. In doing so, he strips away night's mystery.

The eternal edge...

This morning I was at Breaker Bay, looking to photograph White-fronted Terns which are nesting on a pinnacle.

I try to photograph birds which are landing on or taking off from their nests, from a front-on or front-side angle. Like all birds, terns land and take off into the wind. But the wind was coming from the south, which meant that the birds were landing and taking off seaward, which meant that I couldn't get into a good position - the choppy sea got in the way. Pretty much all I could see was the birds' backsides.

A Little Shag (Phalacrocorax melanoleucos) was diving in the shallows. As the bird surfaced I focused my lens on it - this was largely a reflex move. The shag looked around, then took off, flapping its wings and driving its webbed feet to get clear of the water. I took several shots, with this one the best.

Little Shag taking-off, Breaker Bay (photo: Peter D Hodge © All Rights Reserved 2013).

Technically it's not a great shot - the orange kelp in the background is distracting and a little ugly. I don't mind, though. What's important, and interesting, is that the image gives a sense of the effort the shag makes to get free of the water.

Birds which live across several mediums - in this shag's case, air, water and earth - have a tough job. Their body design must allow them to move easily in mediums with different properties - e.g., water is much denser than air. Body parts must be sufficiently flexible to do different things in different mediums - wings to fly and help propel underwater - or at least not to impede the bird from doing different things.

There's a subtle balance to be struck. On the eternal edge, it's the difference between survival or extinction.  

Fluttering Shearwater - sensing and signalling prey

At Petone, the sea and the air were filled with birds, feeding on shoaling fish. Eight Gannets plunge-dived from ten to fifteen metres above the water. Below the gannets, White-fronted Terns dived from three to five metres. Black-backed Gulls, Red-billed Gulls and Black-billed Gulls hovered in tight knots of heads, wings and feet, swooping like spoons into the water. On the water, Little Black Shags and Spotted Shags dived for prey.

An Australasian Gannet in action, Petone (photo Peter Hodge © All rights reserved 2013)

But the birds that stole the show were the Fluttering Shearwaters. Great numbers of shearwaters (some 1000 birds) gathered just offshore, rafting, flying, and surface feeding on fish. The shearwaters searched for their prey by paddling forwards, their heads below the water. When the birds saw prey, they arched up and duck-dived, half-opening their wings and using these for propulsion.

After a while, the shearwaters would sense prey elsewhere, and they would take off, getting airborne by flapping hard and skipping across the water, using their webbed feet to push along and off the water. It's almost as if the birds can run on water, for a few seconds at least.

Fluttering Shearwater getting airborne (photo Peter Hodge © All rights reserved 2013)

The most intriguing aspect was the way the Fluttering Shearwaters located their prey. I watched the birds raft together in their hundreds. Then the birds would take off, wheel, and fly to where fish were shoaling. It was like they'd received some signal - 'hey, the fish are over there'.

If this is the case, what sense, or senses, do the Fluttering Shearwaters use to locate their prey, often at some distance (several hundred metres) and in choppy and murky water? What's the nature of the signal they receive, and how is it transmitted between the birds?

At the inlet - Pied Shag feeding chick

Photo: Peter Hodge © All Rights Reserved 2013

At the inlet - Pied Stilt at Pauatahanui

Pied Stilt at Pauatahanui Stream (Photo: Peter Hodge © All rights reserved)

On Sunday morning I paddled up the inlet to the Pauatahanui Stream. The water was calm, the air tranquil. I wanted to take photos of birds from my kayak, so I wrapped my camera and zoom lens in a waterproof bag, and strapped the bag to decklines in front of the cockpit.

I drifted into the mouth of the stream, following a Pied Stilt (Himantopus himantopus) as it stalked the shallows. In the calm water the kayak provided a stable platform for shooting, although there were slightly awkward change-overs from paddle to camera. Being low to the water, and silent, I got close to the Pied Stilt, and to a group of Royal Spoonbills, without disturbing the birds. Even some Paradise Shelducks and a Canada Goose didn't seem perturbed by my presence.

Later, the northeast wind got up, pushing waves down the inlet. I stowed the camera in a watertight bulkhead. There was little chance of tipping over, but just in case, I wanted to be sure that the camera stayed dry, and with the boat, not on the seabed.