New Zealand - January 1st Pelagic Trip
Posted: March 26th, 2013, 10:11 pm
On January 1st of this year, I went on a pelagic birding trip out into the Hauraki Gulf of the North Island of New Zealand. The Hauraki Gulf is good pelagic birding without going more than a few miles offshore and the trips leave from 5 minutes away from my parents house as a bonus.
We didn't leave until 10:00 am (possibly because it was New Year's Day?), but literally as the boat pulled away from the dock at Sandspit Harbor, we spotted our first "sort of pelagic" bird -
Little Penguin
This little guy was looking for breakfast in the clear waters..
As many Little Penguins as we saw that morning in the harbor, it still seems weird to see a Penguin swimming in a harbor in the middle of summer?
The first procellariform birds for the day was a raft of about 200 Fluttering Shearwaters just off the point as we left the harbor. You can see how close to shore they were.
As elegant and graceful as most shearwaters are, I think Fluttering are relatively clumsy. Watching one try to take of from the water is almost comical.
of course most of them were in fairly heavy stages of moult which didn't help -
The next Fluttering Shearwater we came across was not with a big group of Flutterings. Instead he had a petite companion...
The little bird was my first lifer of the year - Common Diving-Petrel - a bird which had eluded for years.
We started to see small groups of two and three birds as we traveled north until we came across this huge school of feeding fish -
I'm not sure what kind of fish they were -
We stopped here for a few minutes and marveled at the huge size of this school and the huge number of birds it was attracting -
Australasian Gannets -
large numbers of Cook's Petrels
and even more Fairy Prions
but no pelagic voyage would be complete without a visit by the ballerina's of the pelagic world - storm petrels.
White-faced Storm-Petrels were abundant, but amazing to watch as they pattered across the surface of the water picking up pieces of the fish we tossed overboard.
And if you have had your dramamine, you can watch a video I took of their neat little dance on the water, from the rocking boat, with the unsteady camera (you've been warned!) -
But the reason you go out in the Hauraki Gulf is to see one of the rarest (?) and most poorly known birds on the planet....
New Zealand Storm-Petrel - this species was only known from a few specimens in the British Museum that were collected in the 1800s. About 10 years ago, our guide discovered a population of these almost unknown birds in the Hauraki Gulf. We were lucky enough to see at least 5 individuals throughout the course of the day. Some were quite close to the boat.
A little further out we added a couple of more shearwaters...
Buller's Shearwaters
and Flesh-footed Shearwaters
The only other tube-nose we got was the nearly endemic big, black Parkinson's Petrel
We stopped a group of islands in the mouth of the Hauraki Gulf to see a colony of Blue-gray Noddy (the only population in New Zealand apparently)
On the islands, we did see a few not strictly pelagic species as well, including...
White-fronted Terns -
Red-billed Gulls -
Pied Shag (Pied Cormorant)
I took about 300 photos of Cook's Petrels because they are easy to photograph due to their flight style, and because I was hoping one would be the very similar Pycroft's Petrel. No luck on the Pycrofts, but I now have more Cook's Petrel photos than I could ever use!!!
------------------------------------
We also saw some non-avian ocean goers, including large numbers of
Short-beaked Common Dolphin
But the coolest non-birds had to be the visitors we had to our chum we were putting out. While we were looking at birds, all of a sudden the birds that were sitting on the water behind the boat would pop up and squawk as the flew up from the water. Our guide said "must be a shark" and sure enough a big Great Hammerhead cruised right by the boat. The shark seemed more interested in the chum pieces than the birds on the water.
Great Hammerhead - unfortunately, I didn't get any photos of the actually hammerhead itself, just a shot of its fins.
A few hours later, and little further offshore, we had another cartilaginous visitor, but this time it was three Mako Sharks. These sharks were intersted in the chum pieces, but were also perfectly willing to try and sneak up under a Prion or other bird sitting on the surface. Several times we watched birds fly up at just the last second. This Fairy Prion barely escaped this attack from the rear....
As we headed back in late in the afternoon, we saw huge flocks of Cook's Petrels flying around Little Barrier Island where they breed. There were literally thousands of Cook's.
This is a fairly typical representative scene of the number of Cooks visible in all directions at any moment in time.
BTW - there are Tuataras on Little Barrier Island in the background.
So we had a decent trip, although diversity was a bit low due to the calm seas and light winds preventing our chum slik from spreading very far. Still a magical day of birding.
The list:
Little Penguin
Australasian Gannet
Pied Cormorant
Pacific Reef-Heron
Common Diving-Petrel (lifer)
Fluttering Shearwater
Flesh-footed Shearwater
Buller's Shearwater
White-faced Storm-Petrel
New Zealand Storm-Petrel
Cook's Petrel
Fairy Prion
Parkinson's Petrel
Kelp Gull
Red-billed Gull
White-fronted Tern
Blue-gray Noddy
Chris
We didn't leave until 10:00 am (possibly because it was New Year's Day?), but literally as the boat pulled away from the dock at Sandspit Harbor, we spotted our first "sort of pelagic" bird -
Little Penguin
This little guy was looking for breakfast in the clear waters..
As many Little Penguins as we saw that morning in the harbor, it still seems weird to see a Penguin swimming in a harbor in the middle of summer?
The first procellariform birds for the day was a raft of about 200 Fluttering Shearwaters just off the point as we left the harbor. You can see how close to shore they were.
As elegant and graceful as most shearwaters are, I think Fluttering are relatively clumsy. Watching one try to take of from the water is almost comical.
of course most of them were in fairly heavy stages of moult which didn't help -
The next Fluttering Shearwater we came across was not with a big group of Flutterings. Instead he had a petite companion...
The little bird was my first lifer of the year - Common Diving-Petrel - a bird which had eluded for years.
We started to see small groups of two and three birds as we traveled north until we came across this huge school of feeding fish -
I'm not sure what kind of fish they were -
We stopped here for a few minutes and marveled at the huge size of this school and the huge number of birds it was attracting -
Australasian Gannets -
large numbers of Cook's Petrels
and even more Fairy Prions
but no pelagic voyage would be complete without a visit by the ballerina's of the pelagic world - storm petrels.
White-faced Storm-Petrels were abundant, but amazing to watch as they pattered across the surface of the water picking up pieces of the fish we tossed overboard.
And if you have had your dramamine, you can watch a video I took of their neat little dance on the water, from the rocking boat, with the unsteady camera (you've been warned!) -
But the reason you go out in the Hauraki Gulf is to see one of the rarest (?) and most poorly known birds on the planet....
New Zealand Storm-Petrel - this species was only known from a few specimens in the British Museum that were collected in the 1800s. About 10 years ago, our guide discovered a population of these almost unknown birds in the Hauraki Gulf. We were lucky enough to see at least 5 individuals throughout the course of the day. Some were quite close to the boat.
A little further out we added a couple of more shearwaters...
Buller's Shearwaters
and Flesh-footed Shearwaters
The only other tube-nose we got was the nearly endemic big, black Parkinson's Petrel
We stopped a group of islands in the mouth of the Hauraki Gulf to see a colony of Blue-gray Noddy (the only population in New Zealand apparently)
On the islands, we did see a few not strictly pelagic species as well, including...
White-fronted Terns -
Red-billed Gulls -
Pied Shag (Pied Cormorant)
I took about 300 photos of Cook's Petrels because they are easy to photograph due to their flight style, and because I was hoping one would be the very similar Pycroft's Petrel. No luck on the Pycrofts, but I now have more Cook's Petrel photos than I could ever use!!!
------------------------------------
We also saw some non-avian ocean goers, including large numbers of
Short-beaked Common Dolphin
But the coolest non-birds had to be the visitors we had to our chum we were putting out. While we were looking at birds, all of a sudden the birds that were sitting on the water behind the boat would pop up and squawk as the flew up from the water. Our guide said "must be a shark" and sure enough a big Great Hammerhead cruised right by the boat. The shark seemed more interested in the chum pieces than the birds on the water.
Great Hammerhead - unfortunately, I didn't get any photos of the actually hammerhead itself, just a shot of its fins.
A few hours later, and little further offshore, we had another cartilaginous visitor, but this time it was three Mako Sharks. These sharks were intersted in the chum pieces, but were also perfectly willing to try and sneak up under a Prion or other bird sitting on the surface. Several times we watched birds fly up at just the last second. This Fairy Prion barely escaped this attack from the rear....
As we headed back in late in the afternoon, we saw huge flocks of Cook's Petrels flying around Little Barrier Island where they breed. There were literally thousands of Cook's.
This is a fairly typical representative scene of the number of Cooks visible in all directions at any moment in time.
BTW - there are Tuataras on Little Barrier Island in the background.
So we had a decent trip, although diversity was a bit low due to the calm seas and light winds preventing our chum slik from spreading very far. Still a magical day of birding.
The list:
Little Penguin
Australasian Gannet
Pied Cormorant
Pacific Reef-Heron
Common Diving-Petrel (lifer)
Fluttering Shearwater
Flesh-footed Shearwater
Buller's Shearwater
White-faced Storm-Petrel
New Zealand Storm-Petrel
Cook's Petrel
Fairy Prion
Parkinson's Petrel
Kelp Gull
Red-billed Gull
White-fronted Tern
Blue-gray Noddy
Chris