Today was the Auckland Marathon an annual event with this year 14,000 people taking part. They run from the start in Devonport on a circuitous route with the finish line in Auckland. Yesterday I ventured out at dawn to catch up with the number of Bar-Tailed Godwit that have now arrived in our local estuary.
When I left in mid-September for Australia only five had arrived but yesterday well over 200 hundred where roosting on a local shell bank at high tide. These included a high percentage of juvenile birds that will have followed the adult birds from Northen Alaska finding their own way to the estuary. Now that is a little more than a Marathon, I think.
Photos to follow.