chapter

Downside Up

Simon Plat en Maaike Poppinga

Book 1, Chapter 5, New ZEAland, just great! (06-12-2004)

This chapter will be about the sea ecosystem and pelagic birding which is just great in New Zealand. Rather different from the wrecked land birding and twitching endangered species. But let's first get back to where we left. Last thing we did on North Island was visiting a Wellington based birder John Geale and his wife Dorothy. Great time and only bird of note was a calling Morepork in the garden. The ferry from Wellington to Picton was good in my opinion with lots of seabirds. My first albatross passed unidentified!!! As did about half of the 10 'Shy' types of albatrosses that we saw during the passing of the Cook's Strait. But few came close enough for identification and proved to be NZ White-headed in 4 cases and 1 Salvin's. Westland Petrel was also present and most abundant were the prions of which I could only find Fairy. There must have been hundreds around, probably because of the strong winds of the day before and the good winds of the present day.

Next was a Dolphin Watch cruise from Picton into the Queen Charlotte Sound in the afternoon of the thirth of december. Here I was pleased to meet Brent Stephenson from Wrybill tours with his clients Ron Hoff and Dollyann Myers from the US. First King (Rough-faced) Shag was quickly found swimming around. Kind of a boring bird for such a rare one. During the whole trip Brent found another two making the total of 3 birds since we weren't able to visit the breeding rock.

Next were a group of Hector's Dolphins joining the boat for a while. They showed well during about 20 minutes.

We visited Motuaro, but no new birds for me there. Brent and his group found a (South Island) Saddleback by staking out at the water pool. Views from the lookout were great! On the way back we found a group of about 10 Dusky Dolphins. Unfortunately no joy jumping but good views anyway.

Seabirding just got started. Apart from a good number of Fluttering Shearwaters in the sound there was not much around. So we headed to the world renown Kaikoura for a real pelagic. We took the (delayed) 9:00 boat (4-12) and birding almost started immediately with Hutton's Shearwaters in good numbers. Panic as the first Albatross started following the boat but soon there were three, eight and 15, most Salvin's. A real joy was to see the first Cape Petrels following the boat, beautiful birds. Westland Petrel gave better views as from the ferry.

This is what happens when our very knowlegded skipper Allister started chumming! We must have had something wrong back in Whitianga! Amazing to see up to four species of Albatross just at touching range! Here Salvins and Wandering are visible.

There is realy something to it as the first big albatross approaches the boat. That wingspan is just amazing! Here's a close up of a Wandering.

And a Westland Petrel looking for leftovers.

Salvins Albatross was by far the most common bird behind the boat. It actually is one of the prettiest of the family.There must have been over 20 at times, fighting for chum. There also were a few NZ White-headed present but those were really the shy types.

Here's just another shot of a Wandering showing how majestic they are (along with Royal of course, we had some Northern Royals also but they kept their distance).

And last but not least a group of Salvins waiting for more food to come. Eventually they almost got a grip of my breakfast but I could just keep it to myself, thanks to ginger coockies! This certainly was the greatest experience up to now!

We decided not to take another ride and also skipped a whale watch excursion (despite the present Orcas!) to have more time to find Black Stilt in the Twizel area. Weather started to turn bad with pooring rains the rest of the day, night and the next day (5-12)! A bit higher the rain turned into snow, narrowing my changes to find a Black Stilt quickly. Eventually I found about 6 birds (4 adults and two juveniles - one colour-banded) at the northern end of Lake Pukaki (near Glentanner), getting very wet doing that. There were also Wrybills, Banded Dotterel (lots) and Black-fronted Terns around. Since I was succesful, we decided to vacate the area as quick as possible.

We drove to Oamaru. Here we found a juvenile Yellow-eyed Penguin on the beach close to the Little Penguin parade. The bird was not looking too well and strangely was not in the Y.E.P. reserve further up the beach.

Here's a digiscoped pic of the bird. At the same spot there were also Stewart Island Shags flying by. A visit to the Y.E.P. lookout eventually resulted in a adult bird on the beach. Suprising were the many seabirds flying far at sea (the wind was to the land), with a Northern Giant Petrel and numbers of albatrosses (all of the 'Shy' type) in the tens. This completed a succesful day with one critically endangered, two endangered, two vulnerable and some near-threatened species seen in one day. And as told before: sealife in New Zealand definetely is impressive! Take your time to explore it when in New Zealand.

Oops, almost forgot, another feral (?) showed at our campsite in Oamaru: a King Parrot. Nice bird but we will start enjoying it as we arrive in Australia!