We were up early and away from
the accommodations and heading to a spot to look for Australasian bittern. It was a brisk morning, but with clear blue
sky, so as we approached the Whangamarino wetlands area a thick fog hung over
the area. We parked up and started
scanning, not being able to see very far at all, but within 10 minutes or so
the fog slowly eroded away and we had a clear view of the wetland area. There were a lot of birds around –
Australasian shovelor, Pacific black duck, grey teal, swamp harriers, etc…but
try as we might we just couldn’t spot a bittern. We did briefly hear one boom, but after an
hour or so, that was the only trace of a bittern we could find. Never mind, we will give it a go at a couple
of other sites.
We headed off across to the Coromandel Peninsula,
with sun shining and a beautiful day ahead.
The scenery heading up and over the Coromandel range was pretty nice as
we wound our way through native forest.
We had a quick coffee stop at Tairua, and then headed on through to
Whitianga, where we grabbed some lunch and checked into the accommodation.
We then headed down to the Marina to climb aboard
Sapphire with our skipper Ian. Walking
down the marina to the boat we had two short-tail stingrays gliding through the
water, a nice find, and then boarding we headed out through the channel towards
the open ocean. The wind had dropped to
about 5-10 knots and although there was a little residual swell from the last
few days it was looking great.
Strangely, there were very few birds in the inshore section, with almost
no white-fronted terns or penguins. But
as we started to get out a little further we encountered schools of kahawai
working on the surface, and some of these had fluttering shearwaters feeding
with them, and then we started to pick up good numbers of common diving-petrels. We passed a rock stack, and noticed a New
Zealand fur seal, so went around for another look. There were a lot of red-billed gulls getting
ready to nest on the rock, and all of a sudden a small dark shorebird got up
and flew, calling as it did so – wandering tattler! This species is pretty rare in New Zealand,
so we did a couple more circuits, glimpsing the bird in flight a couple more
times, but it seemed pretty flighty, so in the end we headed off on our way out
to deeper water.
We got into deeper water and found a spot and
started chumming. With little wind we
slowly started to attract a few birds, including about 6-7 Salvin’s albatross,
several white-capped albatross, and a small group of flesh-footed
shearwaters. A single black petrel came
in, and Buller’s shearwaters passed close by.
Gradually numbers of white-faced storm-petrels grew as they fed over the
slick. A couple of ‘cookilaria’ type
petrels flew in relatively close giving good views, and they definite Pycroft’s
petrels, then a couple more. In all we
probably saw about 7-8 ‘cookilaria’ petrels and they all seemed to be Pycrofts! Excellent!
We also had about 3-4 Northern giant petrels come in, a single
grey-faced petrel made several nice close passes, and then a white-rumped
storm-petrel appeared on the slick. We
headed down towards it and realised it was Wilson’s, clearly on its way south
still. So too were a number of sooty shearwaters
which passed the boat, and a number of little shearwaters made passes, never
coming really close.
We also had a hungry blue shark come in and swim
around the boat, eventually taking off with our chum when we weren’t watching. A nice distraction though. As the sun started to get low we decided to
head in towards home. On the way there
were literally thousands of common diving-petrels as we went, and more work ups
of fluttering shearwaters, white-fronted terns and gannets, with more
white-faced storm-petrels.
We arrived back on dry land, seeing a reef egret
fly past as we arrived at the Marina, and then headed for a pizza and pasta dinner
in town. Another great day!
Day total – Seen = 61 + 2 heard (Shining-bronze
cuckoo, grey warbler); new for the trip = 6; total for the trip to date = 112
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