Bioluminescence typically makes the water's surface appear to have a blue glow. Photo: Supplied / Bruce Wang
More bioluminescence may be seen in Kāpiti after a spectacular light show on Paraparaumu beach on Tuesday night.
Bioluminescence is a chemical reaction that takes place within some organisms, causing them to emit a light known as luminescence.
It typically makes the water's surface appear to have a blue glow.
Local photographer Bruce Wang was among those who captured the phenomenon last night.
Photo: Supplied / Bruce Wang
He said he had been out at the beach to photograph Comet C/2024 G3 (Atlas) - a once-in-a-lifetime comet that has been spotted over New Zealand skies this week.
Wang said he then noticed that parts of the beach were glowing.
Photo: Supplied / Bruce Wang
Meanwhile, Lyall Bay based photographer Bradley Saunders-Garner headed out to Paraparaumu with his wife and a friend after seeing reports of the bioluminescence online.
He said they initially were not able to see anything.
"We decided to look closer and as we walked through a puddle, making our way to the waves, our feet left a blue sparkle. We moved closer to the breaking waves and they would glow in different areas with each breaking wave."
The spectacle looked like a bit of magic, Bradley Saunders-Garner says. Photo: Bradley SG / @bradleysgcreative
The bioluminescence looked like someone had dropped "hundreds of blue dimmed LED lights in the waves".
"It was pretty magic," he said. "On a par with seeing the Aurora Australis from Wellington's south coast."
Photographer Matthew Davison, who has been photographing bioluminescence for years, said it was rare to see bioluminescence this far south.
"Typically the most common sightings happen in the northern parts of the North Island, typically where the waters are a little bit warmer."
Photo: Bradley SG / @bradleysgcreative
Sometimes, if the conditions were favourable the bioluminescence blooms stuck around, but often they were less spectacular over subsequent nights.
"From my experience, generally you have one night where the show is amazing and then the following days tends to really sort of tail off and and disappear," he said.
But sometimes people got lucky.
For those hoping to see bioluminescence water, Davison said seeing pink algae blooms during the daytime was a good sign.
He said a lot of people also sounded the alert of a bioluminescence sighting through social media.
But unlike the equally elusive Aurora Australis, bioluminescence was much easier to see with the naked eye.
Davison has also developed a tool which can help identify when a bioluminescence show might next appear.
Photo: Supplied / Bruce Wang
Agal ecologist from the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Karl Safi said the organisms people would likely see along the coastline were likely to be a part of the plankton, most likely dinoflagellates.
He said the main bioluminescence species in New Zealand was the Noctiluca scintillans.
Warmer and more stable weather conditions in Wellington over the past few days had likely brought the organisms to the surface, making the light show apparent.
"If the stable conditions continue we might expect we'd see more of the same occurring."
But he cautioned people against jumping into the water, saying that although the bioluminescence species were most likely safe, there were some that were toxic.
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