Our flock of wrybill return to our local estuary usually in March/April to avoid the South Island cool winters. Initially just four then eight then 35 of these delightful unique birds with their bent to the right bills.
We have had higher numbers than this. The most counted were 103 in 2015.
The Auckland Botanical Society talk last evening at Unitec was by Elizabeth Williams the recipient of the 2025 Lucy Cranwell grant.
With so many slips occurring around the Auckland region due to increased heavy rainfall this is a subject that helps understand the vegetation both natural and exotic that follows these event
Yesterday was the Department of Conservation 2026 annual Fairy Tern hui at Wellsford. This is always well attended by people active in the conservation of this threatened species.
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| Adult Fairy Tern with prey 13.01.2014 |
This year a special edition of the Birds NZ Notornis publication including many research papers and current information of research into this vulnerable New Zealand species, our rarest bird species.
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| Notornis Fairy Tern edition March 2026 |
Time was spent on the Pakiri coast from 2012 to 2019 helping the DOC ranger and on the Kaipara coast from 2014 to 2019 helping with a Forest & Bird funded project to create another nesting site away from the people populated East coast where most Fairy Tern choose to nest
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| Juvenil Fairy Tern learning to fish 13.01.2014 |
Unlike Australia our Fairy Tern (FT) numbers are very low. Recently captive rearing has increased the population from around 40 to 50 birds. Australia FT number in the thousands but they too have problems of competition with humans for space at their coastal nesting and roosting sites
Thanks to support from Auckland Council staff, I am busy upgrading our Northern New Zealand dotterel signage with new sturdy signs. The old signs have worked well and have survived going under water at high tides in this location.
The new signs I think are more appropriate to illustrate our work & message to protect dotterel habitat.
After the successful fledging of one dotterel chick last season, we are hoping to build on that again this year although a harrier did fly overhead while I was fixing up the sign. Harriers and high tides are the main enemy in this location to successful dotterel rearing.
Searching through some photos in preparation for a school talk soon about our local shorebirds, I was reminded that I had not posted any details of the Dotterel Forum that was held at the Puhoi village hall on the 3rd of May.
The Keynote speaker was John Dowding who shared his experiences on Stewart Island (Rakiura) in the attempts and challenges to successfully raise the numbers of the rare Southern New Zealand Dotterel.
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| John Dowding & Southern NZ Dotterel |
As always some very supportive interesting talks and I was able to contribute too sharing our local success on having one nest, one egg, one chick, that successfully fledged one Northern New Zealand dotterel this season.
AGM. meetings are not most people's 'cup of tea'. That includes me but there is one exception the Pukorokoro Miranda Naturalist Trust AGM held at the Shorebird Centre. These are usually bearable due to a lighthearted approach to the nitty gritty of recording and reporting on the annual finances.
Once the AGM was signed off an excellent talk by Dr Jenny Hillman (University of Auckland) followed
Jenny specializes in research into restoring shellfish species and ecosystem functioning and follows this by then understanding the benefits of this research work.
After the AGM and talk there was following lunch a chance to visit the birds at high tide for some birding. I always enjoy the walk to the hides especially when accompanied by skylarks singing on the wing.
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| Skylark on the wing |
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| Skylark showing crest |
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| Wrybill in large numbers |
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| SIPO's, Godwit, & Wrybill too |
Interesting to find this little patch of Small-flowered mistletoe (Ileostylus micranthus) today on totara the host tree. This was on the way to our Bot Soc walk along the Moire's Hill summit track.
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| Mistletoe |
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| Mistletoe fruit |
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| Mistletoe leaves |
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| Dead mistletoe hanging from host tree |
On a recent visit to Big Manly beach on the Whangaparaoa peninsular I was impressed to see some new dotterel signage.
On a recent meetup with keen to help conservation staff from Auckland Council I requested some of these new metal signs.
I have some doubts considering the lifespan of these signs in the salty environment of our local estuaries however they are worth a trial as their messaging is good. They also look excellent. All that was required was to drill a couple of holes to be able to fix them up. Hopefully in the location below they will compliment a rather confusing dog bylaw sign to protect this sensitive and important dotterel and shorebird habitat. locally
Our flock of bar-tailed godwit will soon be leaving our local estuaries and heading North to China approximately 10,000kms first to feed and rest before heading on to Alaska another 6 thousand kilometers to breed.
We have enjoyed their company for our summer months and now particularly the males are well colored up in their beautiful breeding plumage which also acts as camouflage in the Alaskan landscape.
Exploring the coastline north of Auckland once more. It isn't essential to travel to the Bay of Islands to see some beautiful coastal scenery.
We have just spent a week staying off grid near the DOC (Department of Conservation) Motutara Reserve. It's a stunning area with two ocean beaches and a calmer estuary side too. There are also smaller hidden beaches and rocky inlets too. The infamous Elizabeth reef is just offshore recently claiming another sailing yacht who's crew a renown sailor and wildlife photographer and his dog fortunately survived. The dog complete with life jacket making it ashore by itself. Unfortunately, the yacht ended up on Sandy Bay beach further down the Tutukaka coast and had to be totally written off.
The reserve area was previously grazed by sheep from the nearby family-owned farm. It's mainly Kikuya grass but there is a steep area of bush along the estuary side.
More to follow............................
A belated Happy New Year to all.
Its summer in New Zealand and although the weather has been rather changeable with some tropical heavy rain that's caused some tragic earth slips and flooding there have still been sunny & warm (mid 20's) days at the beach.
Our little band of loyal volunteers completed the January bait pulse around the Shoal and Ngataringa estuaries in Auckland. It's our tenth year having started in 2016. It was not surprising that the predator control boxes revealed an active rodent month. Until residential trapping takes place our coastal lines to protect terrestrial and coastal shorebirds will keep seeing reinvasion.
Our early intervention to protect an NZ dotterel nest with one egg was successful with one juvenile now fledged. The design of the nest cover with modifications certainly protected the nest from Australasian hawks (Kahu) and Southern black backed gulls. High westerly and south-westerly winds between 50 and 90 kilometers per hour did not dislodge the shelter following modifications to the legs of the shelter.
Our bar -tailed godwit flock of just under two hundred birds has settled down following a rather unpredictable season as far as their roosting habits. They are coloring up especially the males ahead of their 10'000 km flight to China in March on route to Alaska to breed.
I would like to thank those people that contacted me concerned that the godwit had been absent from their familiar roosting sites. Now they appear to be back to moving between the two estuaries as in previous years.
Well, that's 2025 nearly done and dusted. A difficult year for many people across the World and in New Zealand too
It's sad to see the continued assault on human rights, democracy, and the environment. In many cases the very people voted in to protect and nurture these issues have turned their back on them and continue to pander to the few who can easily look after themselves without assistance...I'm optimistic that people will gather together and forge ahead without those people.
For those of us that care about the Environment it's hard to understand what those that don't may not understand about a simple truth. - If we look after our Natural Environment then it will look after us..
With All Good Wishes for a Happy New Year ahead
While cleaning the pond pump and tidying up the vegetation around my garden pond I noticed this small moth on a green taro plant stem' I was rather intrigued that the small green patches on its wings seemed to so accurately mimic the colour of the stem of the taro plant. I have yest to ID this moth.
Concern through our local estuary godwit season was that the godwit numbers had not reached previous yearly totals. However counting this morning, the numbers are on a par with those counted last February of the previous season.
Also visible was one of our Chinese flagged birds enjoying its sixth visit to spend the summer with us before returning to Alaska via China to breed.
Great to see that after requesting that our Forest and Bird signs be reskinned. Some action has occurred. Today I checked after meeting Graham a local on the Bayswater side while I was counting godwit and he passed on that one of the signs had been unskinned apparently waiting for a new covering. I then checked the one at Charles Street that was really in poor shape and was pleased to see that it has been completely reskinned with a fresh sign. (see photo).
Two of our four signs around the estuary were becoming very shabby due to weather, UV and kids' bikes being leaned on them.
I would like to thank the Auckland staff who have pushed this through and Richard at North Shore Forest and Bird who also had a hand in progressing this.
The signs were originally installed in 2014 to help inform locals about the interesting shorebirds that visit the estuary and the designation of Shoal estuary as a Site of Significant Wildlife Interest.
With the discovery that we have probably just one dotterel chick first seen on day 33 after the egg in the nest was first observed we now have maybe 5 weeks ahead until this bird is fully fledged (able to fly and care for itself). ... Although young dotterel are not fed by their parents they are guided to food and shown the ropes of feeding themselves. While the adult birds keep a sharp lookout for any dangers around such as patrolling hawks and other predators.
On Day 38 while watching the adult dotterel keeping an eye on its chick two kayakers approached the shell bank and were first mobbed by a pair of pied stilts as they appeared to want to land their kayaks right by the pied stilts nest with one chick in it. Not feeling comfortable with the divebombing stilts the kayakers moved along to land exactly where the dotterels were feeding.
I have not perfected the art of walking on water so had to resort to intervening by shouting and waving my arms in the air to direct the people to move away and to my surprise they did.
However, the Morepork ( Ruru) did during the early hours of yesterday morning (3.45am) after an initial craw sound followed by a piercing hunting screech then give 16 repetitive familiar hoots. It then fell silent. Once again it was in the Northboro Reserve area a favourite haunt at night.
These are all three of the moreporks range of calls that I am familiar with. Hoots are the calls most commonly heard.
Just back from a few days exploring the Ruakaka estuary. With a wildlife refuge adjacent to the estuary this is a great area to watch wildlife particularly shorebird roosting, nesting, feeding and caring for their young.
It's also interesting to observe people and how they interact with wildlife. It's a wide-open space but why some people have to disturb the birds is I think their perception of enjoying nature in New Zealand.
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| Godwit Roosting at High Tide |
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| The flock begins to lift as people approach |
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| The entire flock is disturbed |
More to follow....
With a worrying 3.5 metre high tide and at 33 days from the first sighting of an egg in a dotterel nest I was concerned that maybe the egg was infertile or had been cooked in the sun. The adults were seen frequently leaving the nest to chase off nearby birds. However, on one of those occasions yesterday morning at high tide when the adult left the nest a tiny chick emerged for a minute or two to have a few quick steps and a look around at its new world before heading back into the nest sheltered by the returning adult to the nest.
Dotterels usually egg usually hatch at day 28 - day 32 so I think this chick probably emerged the day before (Day 32). Fortunately, the estuary was calm, so the 3.5 tides were just below the nest location.
A circling large juvenile Southern black backed gull did pass by but the nest shelter seemed to avoid its attention to the nest site.
So far so good! I will check again this morning for more activity. Then it's a five to six week wait until the young fledge. Now I am hoping that the adults will direct any chicks to the nearby little tent shaped chick shelter to continue their protection.
Its 32 days since I observed a dotterel nest with one egg on a shell bank in the estuary. The giveaway was that a pair of dotterels had been rather agitated with a two Caspian tern one an adult and the other a juvenile resting up on the shell bank at high tide. When I checked at low tide, I discovered a dotterel nest with just one egg so presumed that his a had recently been laid as dotterel usually lay three eggs. I quickly added an anti-hawk shelter to give the dotterel a chance as hawks are very active at predating eggs or chicks.
I started counting the days to hatching. 28-32 is the usual so concern now is that maybe the eggs are not fertile, or some other issue has occurred.
Beautiful day at the wonderful Matuku Link Reserve in the Waitakere Ranges yesterday for a Christmas gathering with the Auckland Botanical Society (Bot Soc).
A few photos taken on the day.
Staying with the Bee theme it seems that I have inadvertently created a small native bee habitat in the front garden. A couple of days ago I noticed a couple of native bees trapped in our front glass porchway. I am constantly rescuing praying mantis, other small critters and butterflies including a migratory Meadow Argus butterfly from Australia.
Yesterday after finding a dead native bee, I began wondering where they were coming from and remembering finding bee habitats that I had photographed in Northland wondered if the clay bank in our front garden could have attracted them.
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| Native bee at nest - Northland beach (Whale Bay 3.12.2020) |
This is a small patch of clay and scoria that some time back I had tucked under the front hedge following digging a small garden drainage ditch. Months later I regretted this during trimming the hedge and realizing that like local building developments on sloping sites during heavy rain the sediment was sliding down the front bank. I set out to tidy this up. I couldn't clear it completely as the clay had dried solid like concrete as this bank gets long hours of sunshine..
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| Live native bee on porch glass |
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| Dead native bee in porch |
November has been a busy month with bait pulse activity by our local group of keen volunteers. And Surprise Surprise the rats have been very active across all lines that protect the bush reserves and shell bank environment around our local estuaries off Shoal and Ngataringa.
Vulnerable nests in at risk tidal loculation's have so far survived. A pied stilt nest and a dotterel nest with one egg on the 8th of November not revisited to check for additional eggs to avoid disturbance. Hatching will be in approximately 28 days.
