PHOTO-A-DAY CHALLENGE

Office Views For You — Bird’s Eye or Not

Week 172 of the photographic documentary of my daily life

After a full week of being confined to staying on the ground due to extremely strong Northwesterly winds, the weather changed to very calm, dry and sunny.

My weekly photo essays will break up my working week here in New Zealand, as I’ve been making them for three years now, always starting on a Thursday and ending on a Wednesday. As random as my life choices are.

Just that now my weekends are Wednesday and Thursday. My off days. So, the essays will begin with my Sunday alias Thursday and end with Wednesday being my Saturday.

And while I think I have confused you enough, let’s get talking…

In my last weekly photo essay, I spoke about our weekend getaway to Twizel in the Mackenzie Basin (we’re in New Zealand for those just jumping into my essays), and after a fabulous but windy day in the Hooker Valley, we opted for one more hike on the other side of the base of New Zealand’s tallest.

Aoraki or Mt. Cook, however, you want to call the mountain. It’s a beauty.

But when we were walking through the Tasman Valley on Thursday, it wasn’t the peak of Aoraki that took our attention. After walking for two hours between the steep mountain slope on one side and a moraine on the other, the wall to our right finally vanished and a spectacular view across the Tasman Lake and Glacier opened up.

There is so much going on in the picture below.

• The trail we had been following just dropped off a couple of hundred meters to the level of the lake as avalanches washed off more and more of the unstable mountain.
• The turquoise-blue color of the glacier-fed lake below still has some icebergs floating around.
• The Tasman Glacier is barely visible, being covered in a thick layer of gravel and sand.
• The mountains in the background are still covered in some snow.
• David’s hat is almost taking a flight to the Tasman Valley and its lake below due to the strong wind.
• David.
• David standing in my shot.
• David standing just a meter or two from where the cliff drops down into an endless gravel slide.
• But he is also pointing at something. You can see a dust cloud off the cliff on the left of the picture. We’re not sure if it was the wind blowing up some dust or if an avalanche made its way down into the valley. The mountain slope was blocking our view.

While we were supposed to be back at work on Friday and the strong winds had stopped, work was still canceled due to low clouds and rain.

I didn’t mind as I had lots of writing to do after three days in the mountains and a gazillion pictures taken. I sat back in my chair, listened to the rain and watched birds hop around in front of the glass door while roses began to bloom on this dreary weather day.

I went outside when I thought the rain had stopped to take pictures of these flowers blooming on our terrace while the clouds were hanging low above the vineyard.

Yes, this is our backyard…

Not done yet with Friday. The way a normal spring day would work in Germany, this day had all of it. Sun, rain and even some hail. Two storms were passing overhead, bringing small but hard pieces of hail from the sky.

On Saturday we woke to our windows all being covered in moisture. With condensation on our window, my other half showed a romantic side of him I didn’t know existed.

If you think I drew that heart on the kitchen window, you’re wrong. I’m the one who took the picture of the heart as the sun was rising, shortening the shadows in the vineyard.

And guess what? It was so cold this morning that our windscreen was frozen. Not a little bit, but solid frozen. And no, we had no tools to clean the windscreen without scratching the glass like in Germany.

But I had an empty milk carton box. It did its job, even if it took me a little longer to clean the windscreen. Once done, I could make a snowball of all the ice scraped off the glass.

Ready to drive to work now, right?

Talking about work. Here is a picture I took at work on Sunday morning. It was another clear day on the South Island. While some of the Southern Alps were still covered in low-hanging clouds, we had a pretty grand view.

While you often just have one direction with great views, at this place, the views all around are stunning. The title image is just another view from above. You can see the Clutha River windings its way South from Lake Wanaka.

Wanaka lies at the base of the Southern Alps, and its same-named lake spreads between the mountains like the ocean does in Norway’s fjords.

And back to today’s picture (below). Behind that mountain on the right with a little bit of snow still atop is where we live. On the slopes of the Pisa Mountain Range.

And yes, I took this picture while falling at 200kph toward Earth. It’s my job and almost easier than getting that damn bird to stand still in our garden to capture a shot of him. My object here might be falling fast, but so do I. And it’s predictably fast.

And before too much adrenaline scares you away, I saved this beautiful cloud formation lit up by the sunset light from Monday evening for you.

They almost looked like they were on fire.

And back to the topic of birds with no bird's eye view this time. I had seen this raven-type of bird during my first week in New Zealand but could only snap a picture from a distance. Even though it wasn’t clear or very detailed, my mom did identify the bird right then.

However, I was thinking of these birds as some type of crow or raven but did not even consider it in the slightest way it could be a songbird. That took me a lot longer to figure out.

Living in rural New Zealand in the vineyards, we are surrounded by nature and its inhabitants. Every morning, waking up at the crack of dawn, we hear these beautiful chirping sounds outside our bedroom window.

I loved hearing the lovely sound every morning but was curious to see which songbird was producing the chanting melody. David was saying it must be a small little birdie as they are the ones usually making the loudest and prettiest songs.

However, today, as I was sitting on my lounging chair with the sliding door open, I heard this beautiful song again when three Australian Magpies flew overhead and sat down on the fence. I got up to get closer but indeed, it was them producing the melody.

Originally introduced from Australia as pest control in New Zealand, there are today three subspecies of the Australian Magpie to be found across the islands.

While these birds aren’t just similar in size to crows, they are also known to be incredibly smart and mischievous.

“Magpies have a complex social organisation; pairs or groups defend a territory year round. New Zealand groups seem to consist mainly of single pairs, or pairs with young from the previous season. In most cases juveniles remain with their parents until the winter, but are evicted before the onset of the next breeding season. “ — nzbirdsonline.org.nz

And another working week has come to an end. As Wednesday was going to be an overcast but calm day, we planned on another hike in the area. We didn’t want to drive too far and I had two hikes in mind, but both of them were closed (which we found out through the AllTrails App). The one due to lambing and the other one due to fawning season.

A lot of hikes in our area lead through private property, and most farmers here have either sheep or deer, which are now giving young ones and shouldn’t be disturbed.

Yes, neither of those two is native to the area as New Zealand’s only native mammal is, in fact, a bat; both of these species have now taken over the landscape.

Deer are kept for great venison meat and sheep for delicious meat and the soft merino wool.

Anyhow, we scanned a bit further and found another trail seemingly open. We drove down to the Roaring Meg, a popular lookout point above the turquoise-blue Kawarau River down in the creek, crossed the road and began our hike following up the mountain.

While most of the hike was on a well-maintained gravel road, we didn’t get bored as the incline was rather steep and we kept on spotting random semi-wild (mountain) goats on the cliffs across the creek.

Also, more wildflowers are bursting into blooming season, and I wouldn’t hesitate to stop and take a picture from ground level.

Now, whenever I do stop to take a picture, David just keeps on walking. There is no way he’d stop unless I asked him to do so nicely. He’ll just keep on walking, and I either have to click the photo quickly before he photobombs my shot or simply have to include him in the photograph.

I opted for the latter in this case and found his faded silhouette adding a little extra to this picture, displaying the flowers growing in the middle of the dirt track.

We then came around the corner when I spotted a large raptor sitting atop a dead tree. I still had my wide-angle lens on my camera and was certain the bird would fly away when I put my backpack down and switched lenses.

But the bird was so close to the road and didn’t seem to care at all about our presence, so I decided to give it a go. I walked just around the cliff to be out of its sight, put down the bag, switched lenses and carefully walked back to where it was.

Surprise, it hadn’t moved compared to David who was already halfway up the mountain.

Looking at the falcon, I knew I wasn't going to get a great shot as the sky was overcast and I was shooting up against the light. However, I clicked the shot, looked at it and decided to give it another try overexposing the image by moving the settings to plus three.

Guess what? The result wasn’t bad. And for you to see the difference, I decided to put both images in. No post-editing was done, just a change in settings on the scene.

And yes, this was a very patient falcon not caring about my presence and standing model for me. Thanks for that.

The New Zealand falcon is the country’s only falcon, often known under the name of bush or sparrow hawk and is the most threatened bird of prey on the islands, with fewer than 5000 birds remaining.

“The New Zealand falcon is a magpie-sized raptor that feeds predominantly on live prey. Adapted to hunt within the dense New Zealand forests they are also found in more open habitats such as tussocklands and roughly grazed hill country.” — nzbirdsonline.org.nz

This has been my weekly photo essay. Anyone can join. Once. Or weekly. It doesn’t matter. We welcome everyone! Dennett started this photography challenge in 2020 and many have participated ever since.

Dennett / Erika / Eileen / K. Barrett / Juan / David / Mia / Susan / LensAfield / Kim / Barbara / Diana / Barb / Sandra / Shruthi / Ellie / Pene / Olive / Gustavo / Jane / Penny / Jillian / Shell / Ivy / Lisa / Lynne / Julia

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