New Zealand Birds...Nov. 2013

The birds in New Zealand are great. Day one we saw a juvenile Fantail displaying along side a river and this bird soon became my favorite and most frustrating to photograph. i tried for five weeks to get a decent pic of its tail while fanned and this is the best i could do, which is really piss poor. Saw loads of fans just couldn't catch them. November is a great time to go for birders because the birds are nesting everywhere and are very easy to see. My camera, that is no longer, was a Fuji F750EXR i had no tripod and was lucky to get any clear pics of birds at all. We saw loads of birds so these are just a very small teaser.

Fantail

Fantail

Black Swans are everywhere...thousands of them

Black Swan

This poor Kaka is in a cage at a wilderness place. The only Kiwi's we ever saw were also at a place you had to pay to go in. Same for the Little Blue Penguin until we saw a few of them swimming while out on the boat. Its a lot more fun to see them in the wild but when you think you might not ever see them well...you do what you have to do.

Kaka

This was one of the two Keas up on top of MacKinnon Pass

Kea

 But this one was sitting on a sign at a car park on the top of Arthur's Pass.

Weka

White-faced Heron

Variable Oystercatcher

Variable Oystercatchers are all over...thousands of them.

Miranda shore bird center is a wild life refuge just off the main road on the North Island. We saw flocks of thousands of Bar-tailed Godwits, some that took to the air in an amazing show. There were pied stilts there in huge flocks and the New Zealand and Banded Dotterel, White-faced Herons and others  couldn't photograph. It is very beautiful there and the hike in is quite pleasant. They usually have a rep. in the blind with a scope if you go in the morning. There is no charge.

Mostly Bar-tailed Godwits but some Pied Stilts in there too

One of the old blinds at Miranda with the Godwits in the background

A White-faced Heron

White-faced Heron

New Zealand Dotterel

New Zealand Dotterel

New Zealand Dotterel

Variable Oystercatchers

Variable Oystercatcher

Paradise Shelduck

Paradise Shelduck

Pukeko(swamp hen). You see these guys all over the sheep farms pecking away on the grass.

Pukeko

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Red-billed Gull with chicks

Red-billed Gulls

Red-billed Gull chicks below. These gulls are now my favorites...they are so beautiful in flight and when roosting with their brilliant red legs and bills.

Red-billed Gull chicks

Spur-winged Plover

Spur-winged Plover

Variable Oystercatcher

Variable Oystercatcher

Yellow-eyed Penguins

Yellow-eyed Penguin

Yellow-eyed Penguins are very shy and hard to photograph as humans must keep their distance. Again we were lucky to arrive at Curio Point just as they were coming out of the water. They say dusk but both times for us it was more around 4:30pm. Below he is hopping up the rocks to his burrow in the hedge.

Yellow-eyed Penguin

Yellow-eyed Penguins

Yellow-eyed Penguin

Grey Ducks

Pied Shags

Fiordland Crested Penguin

Fiordland Crested Penguin

Monro Beach

We hiked in a long way to see the above Penguins. They nest in burrows at Monro Beach on the west coast of the South Island. It took almost an hour to get to the beach then we had to wait for them to come in from fishing. We were incredibly lucky with our timing as they started coming in within about ten minutes of our arrival around 4:15pm. They are very shy and human presence can disrupt their nesting but these slowly waddled and hopped up the cliffs to their nests.

Northern Giant Petrel

 The Pelagic birds we saw off the coast of Kaikura on a boat trip that went out early in the morning was spectacular.
The Royal Albatross never got close enough to photograph properly but some of the others turned out OK. The pictures here don't do them justice as they are huge and there is nothing to compare them to when looking at their photos.

Wandering Albatross

Wandering Albatross

Salvin's Mollymawk, Northern Giant Petrel, and a Cape Pigeon in the back.

Salvins Mollymawk

The Salvin's is such a regal looking bird...he always looked composed and handsome.

Royal Albatross

The Australasian Gannet colony at Muriwai was incredible. The birds would fly in right over your head and start their mating dance, or add things to a nest, or peck at another bird getting into their circles. It was all very orderly with the oldest birds in the center and the younger less mature ones out around the dangerous edges.

Australasian Gannets

Australasian Gannet

Australasian Gannet

Australasian Gannet

The White-fronted terns had already mated and were sitting on chicks. They like the grassy hillsides instead of the bare rock.

White-fronted Terns

White-fronted Terns

These pics don't do any of these birds justice and are just a small sampling of some of the wonderful birds you can see in New Zealand.