abereid's Favorites

Stoked with this one! We had just started driving out of Awarua Bay on our second and final day searching for New Zealand Dotterels with no luck. We decided to stop on the drive back as there were quite a few birds around, and there happened to be two SNZD feeding together!

There were countless dead Gannets on the cliff, most of them adults. I asked a ranger what might have killed these birds, and he said they had starved to death. Fishing grounds are further and further away with less and less fish, and so the Gannet population here is nearing collapse. He said by comparison to 2017, the colony for this time of the year is at 20%. He then told me he was deeply concerned about Cyclone Gabrielle's impact. At this point I hadn't yet realized what was coming other than a few days of rain and stiff winds, and so I heeded his advise, and did what everybody else was doing: Stock up with emergency supplies, and get prepared.

Surprise!

Not terribly wary, but not overly friendly either.

Interestingly, there was a sighting of a male here not long before:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/flyingkiwigirl/15699750462

Addendum: I wrote the DOC office and they said that this is the same male but in eclipse plumage (which would explain the pinkish beak in my photos).

Single bird a few hundred metres upstream in the branch from which the track from the riverbed to Top Maropea hut begins. Reluctant to fly — scrabbled from its hiding place behind a large boulder and stood watching us for several minutes in the rain until finally flying upstream.