New Zealand and Macquarie Island
16 November - 7 December 2007
Ro and I went to Macquarie Island with a number of other Australian
birders in November last year. Some of them have previously made comment
on Birding-Aus. Here is mine.
In the planning stage, we thought that the 12-day New Zealand Subantarctic
Island and Macquarie Island trip was too short, so, as we were starting
and leaving from New Zealand, we thought we would also spend some time on
the South Island and Stewart Island, concentrating on some of the rarer NZ
birds.
We went with our Sydney friends, Jann and Ross Mulholland, arriving in NZ
on 16 November. In our hire car, we left Christchurch and travelled over
the ranges to stay at Punakaiki and Okarito on the west coast, then went
inland to Wanaka, down to Te Anau (and Milford Sound), back through the
middle of the South Island to Omarama (and Twizel) and then down to Oamaru
and down to Dundein.
Although there are not many birds left on the South Island and many
species are in trouble, we did find some good species, including (Okarito)
Brown Kiwi, NZ Falcon, Black Stilt, Kea and Kaka, Long-tailed Cuckoo,
Rifleman and Rock Wren. The Brushtail Possums seemed to be prolific and a
problem.
The six days were not hectic even though we drove a fair way. There were
not all that many places to stop and not many birds when you did. We were
mostly going to specific spots to try and see the specialities. We missed
Blue Duck, which is hard, and Wrybill and NZ Dotterel, which are hard to
get to and hard to find when they are breeding. They all will be easier to
find on the North Island when we return to NZ.
We then headed off for our 12-day cruise and visited the Snares, Enderby
and Auckland Islands and Campbell Island, which are NZ Subantarctic
islands. Good birds were Snares, Rockhopper, King and Yellow-eyed
Penguins, Mottled Petrel, Auckland and Campbell Shags, Subantarctic Snipe,
Antarctic Tern, Red-fronted Parakeet and Fernbird. We also saw Hooker's
Sea Lions and NZ Fur Seals. It was interesting seeing these islands and
their vegetation and other animals as well as finding out some of their
history.
Our visit to Macquarie was fantastic. It is a great island for wildlife.
For example, looking at 300,000 King Penguins is amazing. The best thing
is that the birds are Australian and I added 5 new species to my list -
Kerguelen Petrel, Rockhopper and Gentoo Penguins, Macquarie Shag and
Redpoll - and Ro added 7. There were lots of other good birds – for
example, Royal Penguin, Grey-headed and Light-mantled Sooty Albatrosses,
Southern Fulmar, White-headed, Soft-plumaged and Blue Petrels,
Black-bellied Storm-Petrel and Arctic and Antarctic Terns. The Killer
Whales and Southern Elephant Seals were also very impressive.
The only downside was the number of rabbits, which are causing major
damage to the island. The good news is that the Australian Government has
decided to eliminate them although it will only happen in 2010.
Apparently, the rats and mice should go as well so the island will be much
better for seabirds after that.
I thought that the boat trip was quite rough with about four days of quite
poor weather. Neither of us enjoyed that very much, but it was a necessary
part of the experience.
We ended our trip with three days on Stewart Island. Ulva Island is a must
there as we saw Weka, Yellow-fronted Parakeet, Yellowhead and Saddleback
on this protected island. We also had good views of a (Southern) Brown
Kiwi at night on a nearby secluded beach.
Then we went home on 7 December.
It was a very good trip with excellent company in Ross and Jann, and, on
the boat, with a good number of Australian pelagic birders, many of whom
we know from various boat trips around Australia. They were about 25 of us
altogether, which is quite a contrast to our experience in Antarctica last
year, where there was only a handful of bird-watchers. There were many
more people looking for seabirds on the bridge, which made spotting the
passing birds easier. However, it was often hard to get onto all the birds
that were called and we missed many individuals that others saw.
Our NZ bird list struggled to 101 in total, including the Subantarctic
Islands, and our Macquarie list was a very nice 30.
Chris
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