My three days in Fiordland documenting the team from The Tawaki Project doing their annual penguin nest count turned into six days ... and each of them an incredible experience for me.
The idea was for me to collect enough quality images for a story for The Guardian – the B-sides from that photo essay are what you can see here in today's report. I'll share The Guardian story when it comes out.
As far as assignments go this one had its challenges. Tawaki are incredibly shy of humans (thanks to years of being hunted by early Māori), so even seeing them in the bush was no easy feat. They nest in burrows and many of these are labyrinths with multiple pairs in them and chambers reaching deep under the podocarp forest. The lead scientist, Dr Thomas Mattern, brought his daughter Hannah along so she could crawl right inside the burrows to check for nests. They also like to move around after dark.
After five days I was still missing the key shots of the penguins moving around the forest and coastline. Our last day took us to a small island group at the entrance to Doubtful Sound and Fiordland Expeditions' photographer, Mandy Abernethy, assured me we would get the shot at one key location. And so we sat and waited, semi-concealed as best we could, to avoid spooking the penguins. A Fiordland weka scratched the forest floor all around me, and a friendly tomtit came in to see what I was up to. I had a lot of time to observe nature.
One very nervous penguin spotted us within the first 20 minutes and then hid under a rock. He proceeded to tell every other penguin that we were there. About four hours later, and 20 minutes before the light faded completely, two boisterous penguins appeared and ignored the alarm calls, walking right into frame for myself and Mandy, just as a late beam of dusk light illuminated the pathway.
I had my shot. I was grinning and stoked. It had been worth every supplejack entanglement, every slip and rainy grovel across remote island terrain – most of which had barely been touched by humans before.
See you at the beach, Derek
PS The Tawaki Project is mostly funded by grants, the team at Fiordland Expeditions – who donate their Tutoko for the research work each year, and donors through their Patreon page. You can view that page and donate to that right here: Tawaki Project on Patreon.
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