New Zealand

Aukland by night



Fox Glacier

 So, New Zealand. This was more a family holiday but we navigated our way round using birding sites/areas as destinations – Tiri Island, Miranda, Cook Strait, Kaikoura, Arthurs Pass, Fox Glacier, Stewart Island and Dunedin for example, plus a bit of culture and wine - Rotorua and Hawkes Bay. November is the peak of the landbird breeding season but we managed most things except Yellowhead and anything which needed effort, like Kiwis.

Tiri was great. The conservation bodies have done a fantastic job but they are a bit overly cautious about reintroducing predators – asking people to check their hand bags for stoats seems a bit OTT. We day visited but still missed Brown Teal and the crake, the island having been taken over by several schools. We were however lucky to see Kokako, most of the local birds having been retrapped and shipped out to avoid in breeding. Greg the Takahe raised the question of what you tick or don’t, not a question I’m prepared to answer!


Little Black Shags, Rotorua


Lots of other landbirds proved tricky. For example we didn’t see either Tom-tit or Rifleman on the North island, the only Wekas we saw were on the road side in Fjordland (and not on Stewart Island – surprise) and even Brown Creeper proved tough. Tuis and Bellbirds were pretty common though, as were the hordes of European birds, Blackbirds, Song Thrushes, Redpolls, Greenfinches, Goldfinches, Dunnocks, Yellowhammers, Starlings, House Sparrows being just about everywhere. Obviously the New Zealand farming regimes are more sympathetic than the methods our own “guardians of the countryside” employ!


Kaikoura

 

Braided river system, South Island



Lake Wanaka, South Island

 Seabirds are fantastic and you don’t really need to go offshore for some of them. Although we saw a lot from the Cook Strait ferry we also saw two races of Shy Albatross off Shag Pt and a “Gibsons” Wandering Albatross off Kaikoura headland as well as the Otago peninsular Northern Royals on the breeding colony. We’d recommend a visit to “Penguin Place” on Otago from mid afternoon to see Yellow-eyeds coming and going and its only a short hop from the albatrosses, which can usually be seen from the carpark. The ferry to Stewart Island goes a bit fast for real seabird watching but was still pretty good, particularly for diving petrels, though the crossing can be really rough.



Kea, Arthurs Pass

 As to the country itself? Well the people are really friendly, prices are similar to UK except petrol which is half price and the scenery ranges from old-style English pastoral – cows, sheep, deer in grassy meadows, to worrying, with what looks like over-grazing and subsequent erosion, to truly fantastic, especially around Kaikora and Milford Sound on South Island. If you are going, take a camera!


Fern bank, South Island





Northern Royal Albatross and Red-billed Gull, Otago