Everyone who knows us knows that we love all animals. We, being Josh and Britta, and animals being anything that fits into this category, big or small, scary or nice, common or rare.
We own two large fluffy dogs, a rescued cockatiel, a golden tree frog and a range of long-term resident fish. We stop in the middle or the road when we see a dog who looks lost, we don’t kill spiders when they creep up on us as they have every right to live, and we both fan-girled over David Attenborough when he gave a talk in Auckland.
Our passion for wildlife photography has always existed, but it accelerated when we traveled around the USA, visiting National Parks and getting up close to bears, foxes, moose, elk, and a range of flying, scurrying and swimming creatures. We realised capturing these weird and wonderful animals, and telling their stories, was an awesome way to combine our skills and ensure we were always learning and traveling.
So why birds?
Well, we live on an island in the bottom corner of the world. We love Aotearoa (New Zealand) but we have to admit, our wildlife is not as exciting as the US, India or Africa. We don’t have lions or tigers or bears. We don’t even have snakes (of that I am thankful, perhaps my love for animals stops here?)
But what we do have here in the Land of the Long White Cloud, is birds. In fact, our birdlife is one of the most fascinating and magical things about NZ, and it is well worth telling the stories of our flying friends, as they are in grave danger and have been for some time.
Colonisation bought with it a tonne of pests that don’t belong on our shores and threatened our rare native birdlife, and so we need to ensure we are fighting back for them. So that’s why Snapping Wild has a New Zealand bird focus. We capture all wildlife as we go on our travels, but at the moment the Takahe and Kokako are capturing our hearts, and we’re capturing their stories.
Snapping Wild 