After yesterdays success, but with the light fading, I wanted to try again for the South Island Dotterel in Tiwai. I left our motel at six and drove the half hour there, before walking the additional twenty minutes to the location I saw the birds yesterday, just in time for the first light to break through. It was a little more sluggish than the previous evening, but the tide began to fall soon enough and birds began to arrive. The complexion of the arriving birds was much the same as the previous day, although the Spoonbill did not return. The South Island Dotterel did indeed return, 15 of them in fact, but only at 08:10 when I had to leave at 08:30. Still I was able to record many colour rings and take more photos in better light, although the birds were not as confiding as they were the previous day, but still pretty confiding.
Today we would take the ferry across to Stewart Island, a
beautiful pristine island home to several rare and threatened birds which I
was looking forward to seeing. The ferry across would take an hour, and
departed from the docks in the town of Bluff at 13:15. Surprisingly the
conditions were very calm and as such it was easy to see birds as we sped
along, although due to the calm conditions not much was active. What was active
however were the Little Penguins, another new penguin species, and we started
seeing these right out of the harbour, and would continue to see them even
after we landed on Stewart Island. In addition, there was a Southern Royal
Albatross among many Shy Albatross, a single Common Diving Petrel and a few Sooty
Shearwaters. As we approached Stewart Island itself, a few Foveaux Shag also
started to make an appearance.
For our first afternoon on Stewart Island we decided to walk
out to Ackers Point Lighthouse, a walk of a few kilometres through some mixed habitats.
It was very pleasant walking under surprisingly bright and sunny conditions. In
the harbour, we continued to see the Little Penguins, sometimes showing nicely
close to shore. In the bushes there were so many Tui, seemingly everywhere
to excess, often showing nicely as well. My first Red-crowned Parakeets flew
over us at multiple points, but not allowing for any real detail to be
observed, and as the evening wore on we also saw a few Kaka fly over our
campsite in the small town of Oban, as well as one roosting at the back of the campsite.
Today was very special as we had booked a Kiwi tour with one
of the companies on the island, Beaks and Feathers. This company has access to
the airstrip on the island after hours, and has an excellent success rate of
finding the Southern Brown Kiwi which lives on the island. We met up with the
tour at 21:30 and took a short minibus ride up to the airstrip, optimistic to put
my last Kiwi pain behind me.
And that happened very quickly, as no sooner had we jumped
out of the car than our guide, showed us a large female Kiwi feeding right next
to the road. We watched her feeding for some time, often at close range, before
we continued up to the airstrip itself. Before 23:00, we must have seen in
excess of five different Kiwi of all shapes and sizes. We saw them calling, we
saw them running, we saw them falling over, it was absolutely brilliant, with us
never being without a Kiwi for long. One of the juvenile birds even came
running up to us and since I was crouched down trying to take photos, came up
and started quickly pulling on my trousers before swiftly running away. There
is absolutely no way that our Kiwi night could have gone any better, it was
simply incredible to be a part of.
Awarua Bay: Black Swan, Mallard, Pied Stilt, South Island Oystercatcher, Variable Oystercatcher, Double-banded Plover, New Zealand Plover, Bar-tailed Godwit, Ruddy Turnstone, Black-billed Gull, Kelp Gull, Caspian Tern, White-faced Heron, Swamp Harrier, New Zealand Fantail, Common Starling, Song Thrush, Common Blackbird, Dunnock, Lesser Redpoll,
Stewart Island Ferry: Silver Gull, Kelp Gull, Little Penguin, Southern Royal Albatross, Shy Albatross, Sooty Shearwater, Common Diving Petrel, Little Pied Cormorant, Spotted Shag, Foveaux Shag,
Stewart Island: South Island Kiwi, New Zealand Pigeon, Variable Oystercatcher, Silver Gull, Kelp Gull, White-fronted Tern, Little Penguin, Shy Albatross, Australian Pied Cormorant, Foveaux Shag, New Zealand Kaka, Red-crowned Parakeet, Tui, New Zealand Bellbird, Grey Gerygone, Welcome Swallow, Silvereye, Common Starling, Common Blackbird, Dunnock, House Sparrow, Eurasian Chaffinch, Lesser Redpoll, European Goldfinch,
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