It doesn’t feel that long since I arrived in New Zealand, and yet today would be my final day in this wonderful country. My flight did not depart until the evening, so I had a final morning but knew it would have to be something near to Christchurch. As such, I decided to return to Haasts Creek on the south shore of Lake Ellesmere, less than an hours drive from the airport. My plan was to try again for the Spotless Crake that I had heard on my previous visit, only this time it would be early morning and hopefully I would be more successful.
I walked the 10 minutes along Haasts Creek to the platform
where the bird hide had once stood, to try my luck once again with the tape to
see if the Crake would come out. It took some time for the bird to respond, and
then it did not come with a call that I had on the Merlin App, which threw me
for a time. Yet despite this and the bird coming extremely close, I could not
get it to come out for me to see it. It was a frustrating encounter.
As such I switched up my tactics and moved to a dried up
pool just round the corner from the platform. Here it was more open and after a
little playback the bird started to move towards me again. And then, finally, I
spotted it climbing over the reeds. I was shocked by how large the bird was, as
I had expected a small crake like in South America, but this was much bigger.
Although it showed well it did not sit out in the open for extended periods and
taking photos was a nightmare. In the end I do not think I managed a single sharp
photo, but I got enough to remember the encounter after all the effort I put
in.
For the rest of the morning I stood on the platform and
scanned the wetland peering over the reeds. The composition of birds was very
similar to my last visit, but as I scanned I was shocked to pick out another crake
on the far side, feeding in the open on the edge of the reeds. The distance and
the heat haze made it difficult to work out, but the brown back clearly
extended up the neck onto the head, and at times you could make out the white spots
on the back, making this a Baillon’s Crake, a brilliant bonus bird for my trip.
It continued to feed out in the open for some time, and at one point was even
joined by a second individual.
There were plentiful other birds in the area as well. Once
again there were flybys from the Royal Spoonbills, sometimes showing nicely. Additionally
there were ample Pied Stilts on the edge of the mud. Walking along the trails
there were plenty of extremely tame New Zealand Fantails once again, making for
a very pleasant mornings birding.
I finished off my morning at 11:00 and headed back to the
campsite to arrange my items. Once sorted I undertook the half hour drive to
the airport, stopping to fill up the car, and the dropped the car back off. At
13:00 I was in the airport, drawing to a close my three week New Zealand
adventure, what a brilliant time and a brilliant country!
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