Miraz Jordan Profile Photo

Miraz Jordan

I love simplicity and silence. I enjoy taking photos of birds. I live at Waikawa Beach in New Zealand, and strive to be an actively decent human being. In 2025 I expect to move to Ruakākā near Whangārei. Apparently the bizarre is normal now. Almost 70, I'm super happy to be getting old — it means I'm not dead yet! Proudly a Free Being, eschewing the arbitrary. 100% human (she / her). I joined the MB community on 05 January 2018. Follow me on Micro.Blog at https://micro.blog/miraz .

  • Who knows whether they're coming or going? NZ Dotterels on the move. 🐦

    Dotterels flying.

  • When I checked the swallow nest above the zendo door all the little warm bodies were gone, but this tiny egg was alone in the nest. 🐦

    Tiny white speckled egg on the palm of a hand.

  • Baby swallow photo, with added baby swallow. 😆 🐦

    Baby swallow with very white mouth, on a tin roof.

  • For some reason I don't so often post photos of the Australian coots on the wee lake down the road. Rectifying … 🐦

    Mid-size dark bird with white face shield floating on a lake with rippling water. A drop of water hangs from the tip of its beak.

  • OK, compose the picture of the baby swallow on the zendo roof, carefully and slowly depress the shutt…

    Tin roof with no bird.

    Gone! 🐦

  • Thrilled that there were 3 little Tūturiwhatu | New Zealand dotterel chicks hooning round on the beach this morning. This one was watching me carefully. 🐦

    Dotterel chick staning quite upright, looking at me.

  • Not sure about this, but I think the Spur-winged Plovers that hang around the beach have also reared chicks. The one closest to the camera looks smaller than the other two. 🐦

    Three Spur-winged plovers.

  • You may have to look very closely at these photos to make them out. Above the zendo door is a mud bowl swallow nest. Yesterday when I touched my fingers inside the nest I could feel warm bodies. There was no squeaking though.

    The camera angle is tricky, with no room to manoeuvre. Baby swallows. 🐦

    Swallow chick with white fluff behind and wide white mouth visible behind a small dark beak. One eye can be seen.
    Swallow chick with wide white mouth visible behind a small dark beak. One eye can be seen. At least one other chick can be discerned, maybe even 3.

  • The Oystercatcher chick is of course getting bigger, and darker, every day. 🐦

    Oystercatcher chick and parent amongst driftwood.

  • Can you even see the two almost microscopic Dotterel chicks? 🐦

    One is dead-centre, the other diagonally down and to the right. I've left the landscape in to help show just how tiny they are. You can really only spot them when they move.

    Two tiny pale Dotterel chicks against a beach landscape.

  • The Oystercatcher chick had strayed further from its parents today. 🐦

    Fluffy pale grey Oystercatcher chick on the edge of water at the beach.

  • The corner of the deck railing is the super popular spot for birds this year. This Yellowhammer sang me a nice tune. 🐦

    Yellowhammer on wooder railing.

  • I think this is the same Dotterel chick I took a photo of a couple of days ago. Today I spotted its one or two siblings (they move so fast I just wasn't sure if it was 2 chicks or 3). 🐦

    Dotterel chick on sand.

  • Look at all that fluff! I think this Barbary Dove was just a youngster. 🐦

    Barbary dove with white and brown feathers and what looks like chick down.

  • Three of 5 well-grown Black swan cygnets on lake Puna o te Ora. 🐦

    3 large cygnets with brown feathers float on a small lake.

  • This littlie was hopping / fluttering along the beach. 🐦

    Small sparrow-like bird with spiky hairdo.

    Research and a bit of guessing led me to believe it is a Kairaka | Eurasian skylark:

    A small brown and creamy-buff bird with off-white underparts, streaked breast and throat, variegated brown upperparts, a sturdy horn-coloured bill that is yellow-brown at the base, and pink legs and feet with a long slightly curved hind toe. Adults have a faint mask of pale feathers around and behind the eye, and a small streaked crest on the hind crown that is raised when alert.

  • The Poaka | Pied Stilt babies can only be seen from quite far away. There are 3 here, between their parent and the log. 🐦

    Pied stilt chicks behind parent, just entering a pond.

    Here's a very cropped view.

    Stilt babies closer, as they enter the pond.

  • This Tūturiwhatu | New Zealand dotterel parent is keeping a very close eye on me. 🐦

    Dotterel adult.

    Why? because I was taking photos (at some distance) of its baby.

    Tiny dotterel chick.

  • Recently hatched Oystercatcher sticking close to mum. 🐦

    Baby Oystercatcher on the beach, close to an adult.

  • This little mite hopped away from our front door when I went out. Eventually it found a spot in a pile of shingle. Sparrow presumably. 🐦

    Baby sparrow.

  • Messages from a friend yesterday that I only spotted today 🐦 :


    Bad news, dotterel eggs are gone, good news, baby dotterel!
    At least 2
    Baby oyster catcher too
    3 pied stilts too

    I see a beach walk with camera in my near future. 😁

  • Not the best Tūī photos, but it's good to have this one hanging round the garden. 🐦

    Tui on a flax spear with blue sky behind.
    Tui in flight away from a flax spear, with blue sky behind.

  • The other day there was a hawk circling right by the house. 🐦

    Hawk flying towards the camera with wings spread.

  • This morning's beach walk brought new life 🐦 :

    • a duck and 6 ducklings on the lake
    • 3 Dotterel eggs in a nest
    • 3 Oystercatcher eggs in a nest
    Duck and 6 ducklings.
    Dotterel nest.
    Oystercatcher nest.

  • It was a couple of days ago I caught this shot of a Pied Stilt with captured food in its beak and a spray of water all around. 🐦

    Pied stilt in still water with a circle of riples around and with something in its beak.
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