The kōwhai are flowering, the tūī are singing, and the winds are blowing gale-force - it must be spring in Wellington! The birds certainly think so. Our resident kererū is busy searching the garden for twigs for a nest. The middle-of-the-night food runs have started for the local kākā - they nest in a nearby reserve and he calls to her as he returns to the nest with tasty snacks. And the melodious riroriro|grey warbler is filling the garden with beautiful trills. What are the signs of spring (or autumn) where you live?

I've been working on a series of bird portraits in a more photographic style. That's not to say there isn't a lot of photo-artistry going on behind the scenes, but the results are more like a photograph than a painting. It can be hard to resist putting these beguiling faces into a surrealist scene, but sometimes clean and simple is the way to go. What do you think? Do you prefer naturalistic or quirky?

These three images above were all recently featured in the international photography magazine "AWAKE: Photography." They are all available as limited-edition prints on Elegance Velvet fine art paper, with sales supporting Forest & Bird (tūī) and Zealandia (kākā and kiwi).