Lake Brunner. West Coast

Dups and I are on our third day on the West Coast, and off on a another fungi forage. First thing we did though was to go down to the water front at Lake Brunner, as we had been told that there had been a Bittern feeding at the Lake edge.
I had never seen one before.
Our luck was in as we found it near a drain, and then it flew to the boat ramp, and we were able to get a bit closer to photograph it fishing. It dived in the water several times, and came out with small fish. It would have been nice to be able to photograph it in the reeds, which is it's natural habitat.
We were so pleased to be able to see it and photograph it, that we then went on our merry way back into the bush to be drenched once more whilst finding fungi!
Our drive back to Christchurch was in torrential rain, and the window screen wipers could barely keep up with the rain.
There water falls every where, falling down from large heights into the river, and some of the smaller tributaries were white raging and in flood. Once we passed over the mountains, it was like passing into another land, and back to normal weather!!

Amazing weekend. Thanks Dups

This image has been blown up quite a bit as a 300 mm lens was not big enough in reality.