Up early again this morning, and out the
door, but some leaders just can’t get enough pies, and it was too good an
opportunity to grab a quick breakfast pie – Apple and blueberry – from Miles
Better Pies. So damn good… Then we headed towards Bluff, basically just
making a B-line straight there, with a quick stop at the most musical toilets
in the land in Winton.
We arrived into Bluff with pretty overcast
and cold conditions. Although it wasn’t
blowing a lot, it clearly had been as big swells were smashing on the coast and
it was looking really rough in the entrance to the harbour, with some tide and
current adding to the situation. We
stopped to look at a small flock of white-fronted terns roosting on some rocks,
and then looked out a bit further to more birds feeding just offshore. It is always worth checking birds in this area,
and it paid off again as an Arctic tern came into view. Clearly smaller, more buoyant, and with a
smaller black bill, and the birds darker plumage, all combined to make the bird
stand out well from the white-fronteds.
We watched it feeding, dipping down to the water every now an then, and
managed a few photos, but unfortunately the bird was against the light, so not
the best.
We headed down to Stirling Point to take at
look at the sea, and it didn’t look too bad, with some horrible waves in the
entrance, but it looked better once you were out. So we headed to the ferry terminal and
checked in, loading our gear into the crates, and then waited. We boarded the ferry shortly after, and sat
outside on the back deck as we headed out.
At the entrance it was a little lively, with waves breaking over the bow
of the ferry, and jolting the little bolt…some were looking a little
tentative. We got out through the rough
stuff, and although not calm was a little better. Not a lot of birds around, which was surprising
considering the conditions and the past southerly blow. We had a few white-capped albatross, a few
sooty shearwaters, and then a lot of common diving-petrels as we got closer to
Stewart Island. As we go into the
shelter of Stewart we saw a brown skua on one of the rocks on the way in, and a
few Stewart Island and spotted shags. We
checked the boulder shoreline of Stewart to look for penguins, but nothing, but
it was nice to be in calmer waters.
We docked and headed ashore, grabbing our
gear, and then headed up to the accommodation.
We checked in, and then had our lunch in the sunshine outside of the
South Sea Hotel. We met Matt Jones, one
of the other Wrybill leaders, who will be coming on the pelagic tomorrow, and
chatted with him about recent sightings and events. It was then time to head up and over the hill
to Golden Bay to meet our water taxi for Ulva Island…a nice calm ride across
this time.
We arrived onto Ulva and headed into the
forest. It wasn’t long and there were
birds around, first tui and bellbird, then a robin (of course). There were lots of spider orchids in flower,
and as we admired them we heard yellowhead calling and moved off down the track
in search of them. Brief views of a
couple of them before they disappeared, but we had nice views of brown creeper
as well. We carried on a little way and
found a pair of South Island saddleback, our main target for the afternoon, so
nice to get that under the belt.
Carrying on we headed to a spot where Matt had told us about a roosting
morepork…and there it was! Not the best
view as it was pretty well obscured up in a tree, but nice to see it in
daylight anyway.
We headed to Boulder Beach, seeing a few
kaka and several red-crowned parakeet, as well as more robins and brown
creeper. Saddleback were a little hard
to come by, but we heard a few off in the forest. At boulder beach the tide was right out, and
we had a pair of variable oystercatchers and some friendly weka, and a little
penguin was spotted from the beach also.
Heading back into the forest we saw much the same on the return journey,
but got onto a couple more saddleback, including an immature jackbird – showing
the overall rusty plumage without a distinct saddle. We also had a couple more weka, and then more
variable oystercatchers once we got onto the beach.
Before long it was time to catch our water
taxi back to Golden Bay, and we had a nice easy run back, and then walked back
up and over to Oban. Dinner was another
great meal, with beautiful views over the bay, and then it was off to look for
kiwi.
We headed out into the bay and across the
entrance to Paterson Inlet. On the way
we saw a few little penguins and a few Stewart Island cormorants, plus some
distant Fiordland crested penguins. It
was a lovely evening as we headed across, with the sun setting behind us. We arrived at a small jetty and Phillip gave
us some information on the Southern brown kiwi, and then Greg and Matt took us
up and over, through some forest to Ocean Beach. We walked off to the northern end of the
beach, and well before reaching the end of the beach we found a female kiwi out
on the sand feeding on sandhoppers. Matt
used his torch to dimly light the bird, and we all had excellent views of the
bird for almost 15 minutes, as it busily fed, probing its long beak into the
sand and every now and then puffing up a plume of sand as it blew sand out of
its nostrils. Fantastic! Gradually the bird fed back towards the
forest and then disappeared. It was
clear we had not had any effect on the bird, but the lack of kelp on the beach
probably meant not as much food for it as usual, and so it preferred to forage
in the forest. But we had had an
excellent view, and happily we all headed back to the start of the forest
track. There was no more sign of any
kiwi, so we headed back towards the boat, seeing a morepork on the way – a great
end to another excellent day!
Day
total – Seen = 55 + 1 heard (tomtit); new for the
trip = 5; total for the trip to date = 157
No comments:
Post a Comment