Aurora of the sea
Words + Photos Grant Birley
Grant Birley is an amateur astro-photographer, and whilst the rest of the country are tucked up in bed, he is out chasing and capturing bioluminescence. Born in South Africa but calling New Zealand home for the last 18 years, his nightly adventures take him up and down the upper north island where he says the best spots can be found. Here he recounts some of his adventures.
Under the cloak of darkness, on certain nights of the year, if you cast your eyes out to sea you may bear witness to true magic. When and how often is the million dollar question – which I don’t believe anyone knows for sure. Back in May 2020, my son and I came across a scene in Mangawhai
that I truly believe ranks up there as a once-in-a-lifetime experience – we managed to capture a bioluminescent bloom of epic proportions. The waves were huge, the surf and breaks were clean, which made for almost perfect conditions for a bioluminescent show.
I am no expert and am learning as I go along, with regards to when and why it occurs. I have my theories which I combine with research and try, in combination, to predict when some may be around. My success rate is sadly only about 10 percent at best, but, when I do get it right I get
to experience scenes like these. Conditions were clearly very favourable over the summer of 2020 as we had several sightings and decent shows. I was able to capture it along most of our coastline, from Auckland’s west and east coast beaches, all the way up to Cape Reinga.
The evening out at Mangawhai was and still is the best showing of bioluminescence I have ever seen. The beauty of the images, the prevalence of social media and the uniqueness of capturing bioluminescence caught the attention of a few bigger media and news outlets including The New York Times and many of our local and national news broadcasters, who all wanted in on this pretty (figuratively and literally) special phenomena. The New York Times reached out and interviewed me and two of my mates, who by that stage had made chasing and capturing bioluminescence a big part of our photography journey. My son joins me on the odd photographic mission at night and I will be forever grateful he was with me on this night.
So what is bioluminescence? Scientifically it is known as Noctiluca Scintillans and can be quite common in warm, calm waters, and if a large quantity is present it can appear as a red slick on top of the water during the day – often referred to as Red Tide. However, come night-time, that same red slick is transformed into this vibrantly electric blue glow. This blue glow is, in part, a result of its biological reaction to being disturbed – a defence mechanism to protect itself. This blue glow is referred to as bioluminescence and can only be seen at night.
For whatever reason it seems to like NZ waters. Mangawhai and the entire eastern coastline is renowned for great night skies as it is pretty dark and the Milky Way core rises out east for the first half of the Milky Way core season. The combination of darkness and perfect alignment make Mangawhai one of
the best locations for astro-photography. Throw in a little blue goo (as I like to call it) and you have a holy grail of nightscape photography – in my opinion of course.