A man who loved nature: Rowan Emberson 

Rowan and I were together for 34 years.  Those years were the best of my life, and I can’t yet imagine a future without him.  Rowan and I were fairly self-sufficient.  We spent a lot of time in each other’s company, often on our own.  We shared interests and had a similar outlook on life.  More than that, we had a compatibility that made it easy for us to encourage and support each other to achieve much more than either of us could alone.  Rowan’s temperament was more relaxed than mine, so he smoothed off some of my rough edges, while I provided the drive he sometimes needed to realise his ambitions.

I think that Rowan and I complemented each other in a number of ways.  When we worked together, I was ‘big picture’, he was detail.  His approach was organic, mine more regimented.  Rowan often complained that I was too analytical, that when I asked how he felt, or why, he couldn’t answer.  He just ‘was’.  But he understood me far better than anyone else I’ve ever known.  With Rowan, I felt truly accepted for who I was, hackneyed, I know, but essential to being fully oneself.  He encouraged me, delighted in my ‘difference’ from other people.  He never wanted me any other way.  He may sometimes have been uncomfortable with my behaviour, and would wish that I change it, but never did I feel that there was anything essential to my being that was awry.

I feel like I’ve just been tipped out of a kayak into a maelstrom.  My equilibrium has gone, I have broken my rudder, and lost my paddle.  I have been thrown up on a new beach downstream, am mending the rudder and making a new paddle, that won’t have the well-worn feel of my old, familiar friend.  There is no going back, only forward, into new waters and new adventures.  Rowan wanted me to go there, and was fully confident that I could do it.  He will always be with me, wherever I go.  On a practical level, he asked me to take some of his ashes to the top of a Colorado 14 thousand foot peak (more for me than for him, I am sure).  Beyond that symbolic gesture, his outlook on life will forever colour my own; his energy, enthusiasm, endless curiosity, freedom from cynicism, his compassion will influence me for the rest of my life.  I am immensely fortunate to have shared so much of it with him.

I wrote this very shortly after Rowan died, tears falling on the keyboard.  Just a couple of months later, everything is still raw for me. Rowan was not afraid to show emotion, and at times I was embarrassed by this.  I have learned, though, very late in life, that I should not have been.  So, hard though I knew it might be, I had to share this with you.

Emu

The emu (Dromaius novaehollandiae) is a large, flightless bird, in the ratite group, second in size only to the ostrich (found in Africa).  Native to Australia, the emu’s closest relative is the much more rare, and colorful cassowary.  New Zealand’s kiwi is another, slightly more distant, relative.

A few emus are farmed in New Zealand, but we also have an opportunity to see them in captivity at our local wildlife park.  The ones that I have photographed are at Orana Park, in Christchurch.  The emu is not endangered, so there is no rearing program for them here, nor are they likely to be the subject of a research project.  They are kept at the park so that people can observe them behaving naturally in an outdoor, semi-wild environment.

The birds often pace up and down along the fence line emitting a booming sound.  It is mostly the females that produce this noise, while males make a grunting sound.  An inflatable throat pouch creates the booming, which if emitted at high intensity, may be heard up to 2 kilometres away. 

On hot days the staff turn on a hose to create a temporary pool in their enclosure, which the emus use for bathing.  They sit in the pool, immersing their feathers, then stand up and shake off the water.  Although they can’t fly, emus can run very fast.  They have powerful beaks, so visitors need to be wary of getting too close to the wire.  In the wild, they should not be approached, as powerful legs and feet can inflict a damaging kick.

Emus’ soft feathers are very attractive, so it can be tempting to stroke them.  However, this is probably not an impulse to give in to!

Gorillas

Orana Park, a wildlife facility here in Christchurch, recently acquired three male gorillas from Taronga Zoo in Sydney.  They are western lowland gorillas, endangered in their West African homeland, and are part of an international zoo-breeding program.  

The oldest, and largest, Fataki (12) is a silverback, dominant over his much smaller younger brothers, Fuzu and Mahali (7), who are nevertheless inclined to tease their elder brother.  They chase each other around the enclosure and beat their chests, hooting loudly.  In spite of these apparent displays of aggression, gorillas are generally peaceful animals unless seriously upset.  They are great fun to photograph, the challenge being to keep the building and other unnatural bits and pieces out of the image. 

It isn’t too hard to get a nice portrait, but capturing interaction between them is a little more difficult, and I don’t yet have anything I’m happy to post (watch this space).  A dark, or black subject is always challenging.  Because the jutting brows obscure the eyes I find that I have to work hard to see them clearly, but lightening ‘shadows’ in the raw file in Lightroom helps a lot.

New Zealand blue duck

The blue duck (Hymenolaimus malacorhynchos) is an unusual duck, and a rare New Zealand endemic.  It inhabits fast flowing rivers and streams and nests on the ground, usually by the river.  So not only are eggs and ducklings vulnerable to stoat predation, but nests are frequently lost through flooding.

In 2002, a predator control program funded by Solid Energy was set up the Oparara Valley, where a few ducks survived.  The current management program is a joint effort between the Department of Conservation and Genesis Energy, and also involves local school children in rearing juvenile ducks to be released into the catchment.  From only four individuals in 2002, the population has now risen to fifty.

Blue ducks are excellent swimmers and totally at home in fast flowing water.  Their upper bill ends in a broad, fleshy, overlapping tip, which allows the duck to scrape insect larvae from rock surfaces without wearing away its bill.  The Maori name for blue duck is ‘whio’, the high-pitched whistling sound made by male ducks.  Although not easy to find, blue ducks are generally tolerant of people, and seldom fly. 

Humpback Whales

Niue is becoming renowned as a hotspot for viewing humpback whales.  The Pacific populations head north from their summer feeding grounds in the Antarctic to breed in warmer tropical waters, mainly around Samoa and Tonga.  In recent years, Niue has increasingly become a breeding area too, so that whales are active around the island for much of the winter, between June and September. 

Although there are operators running ‘swimming with whales’ tours, which are very popular with tourists, I prefer to watch from the shore.  While on Niue, on several occasions I watched a tourist boat approach a whale, which then dove and surfaced again some distance away.  Rather than leave the whale alone, the boat then approached again, forcing the whale to dive once more.  Although I believe that most operators are reasonably sensitive to the wellbeing of the whales, under pressure from enthusiastic visitors, I cannot help but feel there is likely to be some degree of harassment.  These whales travel a long distance to breed and do not feed again until they return to Antarctic waters, living off their stored fat reserves. 

If swimming with whales is regarded as the ultimate experience, viewing from the shore is amazing and very satisfying for me.  We regularly heard whales at night from our cliff top accommodation, and watched them during the day from many superb vantage points around the island.  We saw females with calves, copulating pairs, breaching and spy hopping.  One of the best viewing spots was the Sails Bar, brilliantly situated on a headland with a 180-degree plus view out over the ocean.  On one occasion, a whale breached very close to shore while we were walking on the reef platform, giving us a real appreciation of the size of these animals.  I didn’t get my camera out fast enough to capture the moment, but I shall never forget it.  Many times we watched whales cruising past close to the surface, easily visible through the clear water.  I was surprised at how fast they travelled in their seemingly unhurried fashion.

Overall, I believe that tourist operations benefit nature conservation, as without public appreciation of the value of nature, humans are more likely to exploit the natural environment for gains of a more damaging kind.  Personally I prefer a more ‘hands-off’ approach, watching nature from a distance without interaction because I am more interested in how wildlife relate to each other than to humans.

I found the photography difficult, even though we had such good views of the whales.  Being fast on the shutter button was important, because they travelled fast and were out of the water for only a short time when breaching or spy hopping.  The light wasn’t always easy, either.  During the day it was often harsh with high contrast.  Also, because some of the activity was at a distance, the sensor of my camera (Olympus E5) didn’t have enough megapixels to allow as much cropping as I would have liked.  In addition, when the light was better at the ends of the day, there was less of it; so to maintain a high shutter speed the necessary high ISO resulted in a lot of noise with the Olympus (or the compromise lower shutter speed gave a blurry image).  With my new Nikon D750, I would get far less noise, better definition, and more detail in the shadows.  So now I need to plan my next visit!