Hi All,
I am writing to second Chris' post about Macquarie.
For those interested, I have written a piece which is in the current edition of
Australian Traveller in their 'islands' feature about Macquarie and the rabbit
problem.
If you would also like to see pics from the trip, I have uploaded them to my
website:
http://www.ingervandyke.com/gal_pages/recent/gal1.html
It is a rough journey but if you can survive the seasickness and the expense of
the journey, it is worth all of the physical discomfort and dollars required.
The entire experience completely surpassed all of our expectations.
Cheers, Inger Vandyke www.ingervandyke.com > To: >
From: > Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2008 16:02:10 +1100>
Subject: [Birding-Aus] Trip to new Zealand and Macquarie Island> > 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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