Openning morning of the game bird season was not to flash for me,cloud less sky and then the extractor claw on my remington 11-87 broke,so i had to shoot with my double.

Great pics.

Black Duck on the bonnet. Are they Mountain Duck (Shelduck) your got hanging around your neck in the first pic?

What's the bluish one with red red bill? Not like anything around my area in Aus.

Almost looks like the black coots we get here.
Pukeko or something I think the old man called them.

Kiwis call them Grey ducks,and they are a lot lighter in colour than our blacks [though they are in fact the same species, Anas superciliosa]. Lots of them around the South Island when I was there a couple of weeks ago.

They don't have mounties there, but a similar sized shelduck [different colouring though] called the Paradise duck.Saw plenty of those too, mostly in paddocks, as mounties would be.

The red billed bird is a pukeko, much like our Eastern Swamphen. The Kiwis have open seasons on black swans, too.

Our pukeko is the same as your swamp hen , and our grey duck is the same as your black duck . Did anyone else notice the magpie amongst the Paradise ducks in the first photo? Another bloody migrant.....

Good on ya mate .

Gidday Guys,

Crap start to the season down this way too.

Wish those southerlies due to hit tomorrow had arrived on Saturday.

Where we shoot on Lake Ellesmere it is only any good in a southerly so it wasn't until yesterday that the first shots were fired.

The first shot was to put a spur wing that had been shot by a slob shooter out of its misery. These pricks piss me off.

I did blast off a box of shells yesterday but due to bad shooting with little result. I have little faith in steel shot!!!!

Hope you guys had better luck but it is only three more days to my weekend and heres hoping its better.

Happy Hunting

Hamish