My thanks to Gwenda for a great day at the Mangawhai wildlife reserve taking part in a post breeding NZ dotterel count. High tide was at 11.36am. The birds show less movement in the hour following high tide.We worked in three groups and I was in the purple team that had the scenic walk through the dunes to the southern limit of the reserve. This included some great dune-scapes which Gwen thought I would enjoy. They were quite amazing and I hadnt realised quite the scale of this sandspit.We then arrived at the beach where we found a dead Bullers Sheerwater that had possibly been driven in by a storm. It was time to continue and head North to cross back into the dunes to eventually arrive at the Northern end of the lagoon. We saw the NZ Fairy tern nesting site on this route.
We also counted banded dotterel and watched flocks of godwit all dressed up in their beautiful plumage soon to fly North to Alaska to mate.. Other birds seen included VOC's, SIPO's, Turnstone and Caspian terns.