Shoal Bay Forest & Bird Walk

Following on from the newspaper article last Tuesday, today was a chance to take a group of  Forest and Bird members for a walk along the shell barrier bank at Shoal Bay.

 Meeting at one of our new signs at  10.30am  a good turnout of people arrived. This later  included Margi and some of her 'Bush Walk and Talk' people from an earlier Saturday morning walk who turned up just after 11am and this made a good number of 15 people for checking out the birds in the estuary.

                    

                      

 

 We watched  pied stilts, NZ dotterels, kingfisher, Caspian tern, white- faced heron, and  Southern Black backed gulls, adult and juvenile.

Many Thanks to Neil Davies and Margi Keys who supplied these photos of our group today.

Secrets Out!

 

Here I am proudly showing off our new signage at Shoal Bay. Hannah Morris wrote a great article after meeting me and a local resident Eddie Hatch a couple of weeks ago.

 Eddie lives in a house overlooking the bay and has noticed that people seem to be taking more care to pick up litter and not disturb the birds since our Forest & Bird Interpretive signage was installed.

 There is a duplicate sign on the far side of the estuary below O'Neills cemetery on the far side of  the 'new' pipeline walkway and cycleway bridge.

Part of a group of 100 pied stilts with 9 bar-tailed godwit seen today

Maiden Voyage.

My replacement kayak was given a test at Shoal Bay today with a large expanse of water to explore due to a 3.6metre high tide. This enables me to cross the mangroves and explore a shell bank that could act as a good nest site for NZ dotterel. The retractable rudder was ideal when crossing these areas and useful for steering in the deeper areas of the bay.

 Today there were six pied stilt and two black backed gulls on this unreachable by land shell bank. However on the longer  shell barrier bank there was only a small area not submerged due to the high tide and this was crammed with over 80 pied stilts and four beautiful bar-tailed godwits in tundra colours ready for a their long flight to Alaska. Also the same Caspian tern with a whining juvenile that I saw the other day and three VOC's (variable oystercatchers).

Just binoculars and a compact camera today which was unfortunate as a swamp harrier flew low just overhead and my 300mm lens which I normally carry would have captured him perfectly. Another time. I will be back.

 

 

Kawaka Reserve, a BBQ Catch-up and Birdie!

Good walk with Bot Soc led by Maureen through the Kawaka reserve about 9kms outside of Warkworth.

Then a catch-up and BBQ at  Anne and Johns lovely garden. And later a tour of the extensive grounds and feeding of the huge eels in the garden stream. Good to catch up with  Suzy and meet some new faces.

This was great fun especially watching John feeding his pet juvenile starling called Birdie with grapes and macadamia nuts.

 Thanks Eliane for a fun time on a beautiful autumn day.

Kauri Snail in Kawaka Reserve

 

Alseuosmia fruit



Copulating stick insects tricky to photograph clearly

John feeding Birdie

A late afternoon walk

Shoal Bay

Pied Stilt waiting for the tide to recede

 

 

Kontiki Salvage

While bird watching on the East Coast we found this rather expensive kontiki on the beach and decided to clear up the tangle of nylon line to make the beach safer.

 The battery was still showing a recharge light. We decided to rescue the device and struggled back to the car over the dunes. We thought it would be good to return to the owner and maybe find out where it had come from. Will post the outcome of this story

A prized Kontiki washed up on the East coast

 

 

Removing the nylon line from the sea also entangled in sea weed

 

Dangerous hooks and nylon a high risk for sea birds and other sea life

 

 

Yes I did help too with carrying it back to the car!

 

VOC nest but this is an infertile egg

 

Muehlenbeckia Fruit



Sea Primrose

REWARD- Kontiki Salvage on the 3rd of March resulted in a reward from the owner who came to pick it up a couple of weeks ago. So that paid for dinner and a glass of wine or two at the Thai restaurant which  I got to choose as it was my turn.

Okura Bush Walkway

Thanks Jocelyn A great Forest and Bird walk today along the Okura Bush walkway to Dacre cottage the little herders cottage built in the 1850's

 

Photos and more to follow...................................

Mathesons Bay

Its the last day of Summer and its a stunning hot day. Where better to end up than at Matheson's bay for a walk, swim and lunch.

While watching the pied shags drying their wings I noticed that one had a fish hook and line attached to its mouth. This happens far too frequently. Some time back I photographed another cormorant all trussed up with fishing line on Milford beach

 

This happens too frequently.

 

 

 

More Photos to follow.

Motuora Island

It's a working party group to Motuora Island today with MRS the Motuora Restoration Society  and the weather is perfect and more importantly the sea is calm. We are a smaller group and wondering what tasks are before us. We are quickly landed and then to work today clearing invasive weed from the ponds on  the Island.

 Jennifer Graeme and I tackle the smaller one with no water. It's completely dried up but surrounded by close bush so became very hot and quite airless to work. However the task was completed and then we were free to explore the Island until the pick up boat arrives at 3.30pm.

 I always head for the North and Southern most points of the Island and do my usual search for copper and blue butterflies. Then for a swim to cool off . We all wanted to stay in the water the temperature was just perfect and it was good to wash off some of the dirt from the mornings work especially those that had chosen the pond with knee depth water.

Another great day on this beautiful Island.

 

 

Common Copper Female feeding on muehlenbeckia 

 



Young Caspian Tern begging for attention and food.

Juvenile Gannet at the new colony

 

 

Jennifer pond clearing

Graeme pond clearing

Just about finished

Common Copper Male on muehlenbeckia.

 

Just Back. More photos to follow

Ian Wells Track- Waitakere Ranges.

The reason and highlight of my joining this walk today was the chance to see cave wetas at an old mine working on the Ian Wells walking track in the waitakeres.

 

Filmy fern

Cave weta in old mine working

 

 

More photos to follow

Make the most of your Toast!

 

Black-backed gulls are great scavengers and are a high risk to nesting shore birds who don't only have to contend with disturbance from us, our dogs and predators but also have to contend with nature itself on a daily basis.

 However today this gull at Shoal bay appears to be  too busy looking for vegemite!

Beach House Hideaway

We are staying for a week at a secluded beach house on the Mangawhai coast. Its great place with the added bonus that it looks over the Fairy tern nesting area on the Mangawhai spit. Thanks to a friend I soon recognised a Fairy tern call and two flew over me heading West.

Its a great place for looking down on the Fairy tern as they feed below diving for fish in the Mangawhai estuary.

 I managed to get some shots of the birds as they flew past after feeding. Its been a poor   nesting period due to the very high winds that scattered chicks and caused birds to abandon nests.

 I decided to keep away from any remaining nesting sites and opted for a trek up to Te Arai point This was successful and a great walk on white sand with beautiful waves crashing onto the beach.

 I was able to photograph two birds preening themselves near a little group of White fronted terns.

Returning today I watched another younger bird preening itself. They are all banded so should be able to get their history.

 This was the very area that I had taken part in an NZ dotterel count during 2013 with Gwen and Eliane.




We have just had another swim and next it's a BBQ and then a soak  in the hot tub on the deck  to gaze at the stars.

This is a fabulous place.