Breakfast was at nine to accommodate other guests (and we're not in a hurry). Lots of fruit including some Tamarillo - alternatively known as a tree tomato, yogurt, cooked breakfast goodies, toast and preserves, cheese and mini blueberry muffins! Other guests do not appear at 9 but we eat anyway. When they do sit down we can understand why a lie in might have been necessary. The young lady (originally from Bryn in Nearh Port Talbot) had been on a luge run in Rotorua and on her fifth run had come off - cracked ribs, split lip, black eye plus bruised in many other places. Golly, no wonder she didn't want to get out of bed!
Weather is a bit changeable, windy, and a little on the cold side - put plenty of layers on as...
...today we are off up the coast for an estuary bird tour (unfortunately not enough time to go to Kapiti Island).
Drive for about an hour north of Wellington before we stop near our agreed meeting place with the tour guide.
Eric is confused - I didn't think we were going to Waikanae until Thursday.
We are a little early so investigate the beach.
As busy as usual.
We meet our guide at his house. There is an old Citroen Light 15 on the drive - lovely condition. Excitement ensues as we are told that we will be riding in this to the start of the walk!
Erratum: Those that are interested and paying attention should note; the duck ID (Napier Blog) was incorrect (as those in the know know - echoes of George W). They were not scaup, as suggested, but we now think they were juvenile Paradise Shelduck. Given that there were a number of mistakenly identified Scaup in the previous picture perhaps this paragraph should be an Errata.
See genuine Scaup seen in Waikanae Beach.
A real NZ Scaup
A list of birds possibly to be seen.
There are a few small lagoons on the way to the estuary, and the gentleman tells us a lot of information about the area and the local people (this woman's garden has featured in a magazine as best seaside garden, the lady who lived in this house with the swallows nesting used to edit his newsletter but had died recently...) as well as stories about the local wildlife (Henrietta the Black Swan who had teamed up with Thomas the Goose but 16 years later when Henrietta teamed up with another Black Swan they'd found out she was a he and re-named it Henry.) Our guide, as you may have guessed was another colourful character.
There are also some Paradise Shelduck with some easily identifiable youngsters.
Father and young
Mother and young
We wander along the estuary and to the beach.
There are Oystercatcher nesting here, they are squawking and trying to distract another walker.
We walk in a direction we think should be away from their nest, but after seeing off the first bloke they come after us. They get noisier and more agitated - in the end they come at, and attack, our guide, hitting him on the shoulder. We move quickly out of their way as their bill is long and if they dive-bomb again, could do some damage.
We see Pied Shag, Little Shag and Little Black Shag.
Pied Shag
It's not immediately obvious from the photo but the bird on the left is the Little Shag - some white on chest, and a much shorter yellow bill (which is tucked in at the moment).
Little Black Shag
Our tour is then taken to someone's garden where there is something exciting to see, but we are not told what it is. Turns out it is - Eels.
The lady had some lovely fragrant roses in her garden so asked her what variety, which she told us, but of course, we have forgotten already what they were!
We return to Welington after the tour, stopping along the plentiful seafrontage in the area for a picnic. The sun is out, but the wind is wickedly blowy.
Return to B&B to get ready for the evening's adventure. We are going to a local tourist attraction called Zealandia - a wildlife sanctuary. You may have guessed why - a night time walk on the trail of the elusive Kiwi. They have Little-spotted Kiwi living wild in the sanctuary. Although these are not a North Island native species, they have been on the North Island since 1890, when they were translocated to Kapiti Island. They have since been distributed to other reserves such as Tiri Tiri Matangi Island, Long Island, Motuihe Island and Karori Reserve (where Zealandia is). So it would still be good to see a Kiwi, even if it's still not quite as wild as we might prefer.
Before this we sit and chat to the young couple of the luge accident. Amazingly they had won a holiday to New Zealand in a competition related to Lord of the Rings. It included all the flights, tours of Hobbiton, a week's accommodation plus some other side bits. They'd asked if they could move the return flight and so extend the holiday at their own expense to make it three weeks instead of one. They were also coming on the night walk.
It started at 7:45 - indoors at first with a video and talk. Then outside - even though we had plenty of layers on, one of us had to borrow another fleece - even a hat was required!
It wasn't quite dark when we started out and there was other wildlife to see as well as the potential Kiwi spotting.
There were Paradise Shelduck with little ones (as seen earlier in the day), Paheke (Brown Teal) Pied Shag, Tuatara (like gecko type things) - getting darker and all too difficult to photograph though; glow-worms aplenty, kiwi calling but no sighting until ...a Kiwi's fluffy bum!! It was seen rapidly disappearing into the bush. Success - what a great sighting. Now understand why they are sometimes referred to as high speed hedgehogs.
We return to accommodation well past our bedtime, with no time to write the blog up until today.
Thought I heard the doorbell ring at about 2:30am?