Its the first day of lockdown 3 after five weeks of lockdown 4 following New Zealand's first community Delta Covid outbreak.. Its still fairly quiet out and about and with an 8.10am high tide I'm out to check the numbers of our newly arrived local estuary godwit.
They began arriving on the 13th September and now the flock is building in size. The birds look in remarkably good condition following an amazing 11.5 thousand kilometre flight from Alaska. Last season 4BBRW set an amazing record of nearly 12,000 km in 9.5days.
Today these birds are fairly settled on this sand/shell bank after feeding out on the mudflats at low tide. The only disturbance was caused when a pair of variable oystercatchers decided to take of and head for their more favoured shell bank and the godwits seemed for a moment to instinctively take off with them before returning and settling back down. Nearby a smaller group of south Island pied oystercatchers stayed settled saving their energy