Most of us were up nice and
early and headed back to the Stilt Ponds to watch the tide coming in
again. This time with the sun coming up
the light was fantastic, but meant that the shellbanks were looking into the
sun, but the light onto the Stilt Ponds themselves was beautiful. A large flock of about 500+ wrybill was
already starting to gather on the edge beside the Stilt Ponds, and before long
we had spotted several sharp-tailed and curlew sandpipers. Then the long staying marsh sandpiper flew in
and landed in amongst the pied stilts on the pond – nice!
Shortly after the bar-tailed godwit and red knot
started to fly in and wheel around the ponds, landing in the shallow
water. The photographers were in heaven,
and sneaking in to the edge of the ponds allowed great views of the marsh
sandpiper, sharp-tailed, and wrybill.
With the morning light and no wind the reflections were fantastic! We spent time scanning the birds to try and
find anything unusual, or the black-tailed godwit that we had seen briefly the
day before, but nothing made itself obvious.
So it was time to head back to the accommodation
and pack up, and then headed up and over to Whitianga. It was beautiful and sunny, but having heard
from our skipper for the planned afternoon pelagic it sounded like it was very
windy out on the water, and it was forecast to be very windy all
afternoon. It was not looking good! As we headed up and over from Tairua and had
a view of the sea, we could sea swells rolling in and a good stiff breeze.
We arrived at our Whitianga accommodation and
checked in, and then heard from the skipper that the pelagic was not going to
go ahead with 30-35 knots of wind out on the water. So a pretty disappointing outcome, but understanable
under the conditions. We headed down to
the local bakery and consoled ourselves with pies! Then some spare time in town to run errands,
post postcards, etc before heading out to a forested area nearby to see what we
could find. It was a lovely walk through
the native forest to see some large kauri trees, but there was not a lot of
bird activity. Heading back to the coast
we checked out a couple of local patches around the town, with a visit to see a
small pied cormorant colony, where there were birds coming and going and
roosting beside nests. We also checked
out several ‘fenced’ areas along the beach where New Zealand dotterel were
nesting, and found a good number of pairs.
At one site a couple of us got a little caught out by the incoming tide and
surf, but luckily not too much damage to camera gear, and some nice photo
opportunities with the dotterel.
Before long it was time for another dinner, and of
course a few more wines! All in all a
pretty good day!
Day total – Seen = 51 + 1 heard (Eastern rosella); new for the trip = 2; total
for the trip to date = 100
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| Stunning little marsh sandpiper came in close whilst feeding |
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| Red knot flock in flight over the Stilt Ponds |
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| White-faced heron snapped as it flew past over the ponds |
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| Sharp-tailed sandpipers feeding really close along the shore |
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| Beaut little wrybill with reflection |
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| Young pied stil feeding on the Stilt Ponds…dunno why they call it that! |
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| Young pied stilt tries to chase off the marsh sandpiper |
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| Sharp-tailed sandpiper pauses whilst feeding |
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| Wrybill coming in closer whilst feeding |
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| Pied cormorants flying past |
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| Sky lark singing and hovering near the Stilt Ponds |
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