Portraits of New Zealand Native Birds

Portraits of New Zealand Native Birds

Second Edition (v1.2) Updated 1 April, 2018 


Note: This is a fixed layout book. It is meant to be displayed in landscape mode only, and is best viewed on a Mac, an iPad or an iPad Mini. On an iPhone images will be viewable, but text may be too small to read.


In this, the second edition of Portraits of New Zealand Native Birds, an additional half dozen new species are represented. Thirty new images have been added, as well as the inclusion of many high resolution images for retina displays.This unique book now contains over 250 photographic portraits of many of New Zealand’s most iconic native, endemic, and migratory birds. New Zealand readers of this book will gain a greater appreciation of native birds and the perils to their continued existence. The book also provides a showcase for the larger world to appreciate New Zealand’s beautiful birds. Information is provided for amateur photographers to improve their skills in photographing birds in the wild, and will help would-be birders to understand the ethics of responsible bird observation. Included are insights into the birds by New Zealand’s most renowned naturalists of the 19th and 20th centuries to aid the reader’s understanding of the current state of native birds. All readers will gain a greater appreciation of New Zealand’s native birds and why they need our protection.


Many of New Zealand’s birds became extinct in the last century, and many more are threatened or endangered today due to habitat loss and introduced species’ predation. Readers will gain a greater appreciation of New Zealand’s native birds, and why they need our protection. A Native American proverb says it well, “Take care of the Earth, for we do not inherit it from our parents, we borrow it from our children.”


About the Author

In 2006 John Elmer Lee and his wife immigrated to New Zealand seeking new horizons and became citizens in 2011. The focus of his photography has been on native bush, pelagic and shore birds. He is currently expanding his catalogue to include landscapes and black and white studies. All of the images in this book are from the period 2006 to 2018.