My Seabird of the Year 2014 - Poor Knights star

I enjoyed snorkelling at the Poor Knights Island - a fabulous marine reserve with lots of underwater colour and life. But on the day the real star was the Buller's Shearwater, which put on an extraordinary feeding show.

Poor Knights Islands, seen through a haze of seabirds

Dotterel as Bird of the Year

I'm leaning towards voting for the New Zealand Dotterel as bird of the year. These cute birds love this sort of habitat. Pretty hard to spot them among the seaweed and driftwood, until they start to move. Then it's almost like their on wheels, they zoom along, stopping and starting. They hold still long enough for me to focus the camera, then they speed off just as I take the shot! 

 There's something wrong with this picture, and it's not just that it's a poor shot!

Bird of the Year - why not the shag?

Voting in Forest and Bird's annual Bird of the Year competition is underway this month. Which bird will you vote for? There's already some hot competition with advocates pushing their favourite species. Today, the rare Mohua seems to be ahead, but who knows how the voting will go in the final count.

Shags haven't got many votes yet, perhaps they seem too common to attract attention. Here's a pied shag on Pukerua Bay beach. They have an interesting hook on the end of their beak, which must help them catch fish.

Pied shag