A Rena on our Doorstep.

Yesterday I checked out the news of a diesel oil spill in Lake Pupuke. This is a serious contamination of the lake and wildlife is seriously affected.

 

 

The 'Rat Pack'

Well not quite but great to meet up with F&B volunteers Amy, Anne-Elise, Bill and Joel to lay out the bait stations in the Jutland reserve. Not the best day to pick but a successful morning and in a months time we will meet again to check and top up with more bait.
This is part of the North West Wild-link assistance programme to protect the birds around the coastal forest edge of Shoal and Ngataringa bay and hopefully will also benefit the shore birds (NZ dotterel) attempting to nest on the shell banks of the estuary.

Café meet-up as Joel from Highpoint explains the plan

Joel from Highpoint contracted by Auckland Council.

Mangawhai Moonlight.

Beautiful moonlight across the estuary towards Hauturu (little Barrier Island).

Enjoying walks and the wildlife of the Mangawhai estuary.
Dolphins and stingray flow  in with the tide. Then at low tide banded dotterel and godwit feed below joined by SIPOs NZ dotterel in breeding plumage.

A reef heron hunts its prey along the edge of one of the channels.  Photos to follow...................

Kaipara island paddle

A muddy start to our day with the tide out so some early haulage over the mud to get to the water. But an easy paddle with two large drums of water for  weed work.

Low tide on the Kaipara channel

Happy days!

Changing the SD card on the monitoring camera.

Ngataringa Bay

72 Wrybill took flight along with 3 Caspian Tern, 156 Oystercatchers, 35 pied stilt , 9 banded dotterel and 3 NZ dotterel. I think it was a light aircraft way up above that spooked them.

City bird life-72 wrybill with two oystercatcher and a pied stilt

Ngataringa Bay bird count.

    2 x Caspian Tern
  29 x variable oystercatcher
192 x South Island Pied Oystercatcher 
    2 x wrybill
    4x  NZ dotterel
50 x pied stilt
  4 x spur-winged plover
  2 x banded dotterel

Rangitoto Island

Its a long time since I have visited this amazing island and it was good to be back today for a walk to the summit and the lighthouse track.

 It was good to be able to show Ed, newly arrived from the UK around and to have a chat with Susie who was tree planting on Motutapu island.

 

Reef Heron

I have been searching for a reef heron in Shoal Bay for several years to complete the five birds I am studying that the estuary is important to support and which earns Shoal Bay the DoC title of a Site of Significant Wildlife interest.



Reef Heron Shoal bay

 

 The other birds include the NZ dotterel, banded dotterel, wrybill and Caspian tern. I have seen the others on many occasions but this is my first sighting of a reef heron in this estuary. It is such a timid and solitary bird.
It landed on a rocky area that was uncovered by the tide and then haunched up waiting which is a classic pose of this bird. I have included some other  photos of reef heron that I have taken on the East coast.



Reef Heron East Coast




Reef Heron East Coast

Miranda -The 'Flock'

A wild weather day to be visiting Miranda Shorebird centre but good to catch up with people and see the growing 'Flock'

After the AGM an excellent talk by Pip Wallace entitled The nature of protection -Biodiversity law and planning.


More to follow.

Birthday Treat

One of my favourite places to explore is the Waitakere coastline of Whatipu beach and today we were exploring the Parahara dunes near Karekare beach.

The forecast was gale force winds of 100 kms per hour and 9 metre waves for later in the day. We were not disappointed but between the downpours there was time for botanising with a hardy group of 7. Thoroughly enjoyed the day.

 

More Photos to follow.....................

Pigeon Post - Wrong Lens?

I came to birds late and now they (a Kereru)  are coming to me.  Thanks for the photos Lee.

 

The Three Beaches

A great day spent visiting the three East coast beaches and checking traps, enjoying birds, friendships' an Indian Summer and Indian taka-ways..

 

 

 

 

Photos and more to follow.

Dotterel Forum-Omaha beach.

An extremely interesting and informative talk by John Dowding today at the dotterel forum which was held at Omaha.
John outlined the good news and bad news with the progress of the North Island and South Island dotterel populations.

John Stewart also gave a very short talk about the catching and banding of the dotterels that have nested on Hobbs Beach for the very first time.

Photos and more to follow.

The Kermadecs

I'm just back from my expedition to the Kermadec Islands . A fantastic experience with plenty of great memories.

 The kermadec Islands are very remote. Almost 1000kms northeast of New Zealand.  Managed and maintained by the Department of Conservation (DoC) New Zealand.

The immediate area around the islands is  marine reserve and now there is a move to create the Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary covering some 620,000 square kilometres of ocean to protect this region from fishing and mining.

Zodiac cruising around Curtis Island

Black winged petrel



That's Mt Moumoukai towering above the crater lakes

 

White-naped petrel

Kermadec petrel

Kermadec Pohutakawa

Low Flat

 

Nikau grove

Dragonfly licking stalk

 

 

Spotless Crake

Kermadec Kakariki



Kermadec Kakariki




Mt Moumoukai 516 metres

This is the view from Mt Moumoukai which is 516 metres high and overlooks the blue and the green lakes. It was quite a climb in the sub-tropical heat after we had also walked to Boat Cove for a picnic lunch.


Pleased to be at Denham Bay beach Raoul island. Thanks for this shot Andrea.

 You can see by the grin on my face that I was so pleased to complete the overland traverse trek to the historic Denham Bay on Raoul Island via the ridge above the crater and then down the steep track with the help of four roped sections.

 The walk along the ridge of the caldera had great views into the crater of the green and blue lakes. Then this  view down to Denham Bay. The lighter green area is the swamp. This was  called the lagoon by early settlers.

 
The sea can be unforgiving on this beach with a serious swell and  undertow and under different weather conditions early settlers were forced to move to the other side of the island. Although the bay looked benign on our visit.

 



View down to Denham bay.

 

 

Spirit of Enderby

Our expedition ship The 'Spirit of Enderby' a 72 metre ex Russian oceanographic ship complete with Russian crew  leased from the Russian Government.

Bottlenose dolphins bow riding.

Red-tailed tropic bird

False Killer Whale

False killer Whale

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