Ōtautahi / Christchurch Daily Photo

I went to the Botanic Gardens today with the intention of photographing the early spring flowers. So I never expected to come home with this shot… but that’s the fun of photography, sometimes you are just in the right place at the right time. I had no idea the Kereru was even in the tree initially – as I was focused on photographing the berries on the tree (I took a very out of focus picture of that!). The kereru would have been maybe 4 feet above me in the tree – close enough for me to be startled and then worried that it was going to fly into me. The bird was completely oblivious to me as I was filming it (I think there’s something about the camera that makes them disregard me as a threat), but it was very aware that an older lady was standing behind me watching me filming. The lady was amazed as I was about how close and clumsy the bird was. And then off she flew (the bird not the lady).