Karen and Rex get some of their greatest photography thrills out looking for slow hawks - the ones by the road edge that hang around long enough to have their mug-shot taken. The harrier hawk is also known as kahu, swamp harrier, Australian harrier, marsh harrier, or simply as a hawk. We add 'budgie' to that list.

During the 1930s and 1940s hawks were persecuted, Acclimitisation Societies paying a bounty for their claws. From 1985 they became protected. Nowadays a large source of their food is from road kill, so we commonly see them dining from our cars. The first two pictures below are typical of an encounter alongside Lake Dunstan.