Went out to Motutapu a month or so back in search of Shore Plover, but I dipped, although I didn't get any new year things, did finally succeed in seeing a buff-banded rail in the mangroves, which was quite cooperative, dashing in and out of the mangrove 'scrub', every 5 minutes or so, so still quite a nice trip.
Week or so after that, I headed out to Tiri-tiri Matangi again, (third time this year i know), again in search of petrels and whatever dastardly creatures of the night I could find. First day wasn't too eventful, most of it was searching for Auckland Green Geckos (if you haven't hear dof these, search them up!!), which have definitely been established/released recently?-ish, but I didn't know anything about locales, so I just spent the day slowly scanning manuka/kanuka shrubs as that's what they're found on usually (as although mainly insectivorous, they'll also feed on nectar, which these shrubs provide). So I basically just did that to pass the time, until night finally came, yet once again I'm still cursed with petrels.. (May've seen like 2? really fast and brief silhouettes, but no clear sightings). Although there was a lot of little-penguins that came ashore onto the beach, and thus would be in your path as you walked around, sprinting off into the surf, entirely hunched backs, like little goblin rockets. Stumbled across a few tuatara, but most of them were still too fast to dash off into their burrows so no real good views sadly : (. Highlight of the night was coming across a kiwi foraging super close to me on the Wattle-Track, unfortunately I was only in position to see it's posterior as it foraged, and when i shifted to the side, to try see it's face better, I got one good look as it realised I was there, before shooting up the small slope and into the ferns.
Next morning, had a small side quest in mind, to try see all the takahes on the island (there's only six, two pairs with a chick each), as I'd already seen the ones by the Lighthouse real well, so I thought I'd give a shot if I could see the ones on the East Coast Track/the north of the island as well. Here I saw my two fernbirds of the trip, seemed to have pretty good luck with them just by the lighthouse 'early' in the morning, you hear them and see them quite well as they'll crawl around in the bushes, dopily, yet hurriedly flying form one patch to the next. Thus, walked my way to the very tip of the island, (a Maori pa site? Well it was signed as such but I saw no trace, just a nice view on a cliff to the sea beyond). And on my way back had a run in with the other takahe family so that was that done.
super obliging!
After that did mostly the same as the previous day, just methodically searching for green geckos, didn't stumble into any, but did manage as a very nice surprise to come upon a male (assuming from lack of visible ovipositor) Wetapunga! Although I've heard they're usually not all that concealed, this one was nestled very deeply into the manuka branches, so it was quite hard to get good views of it and would not have came across it unless I was searching for geckos I don't think, so that was a nice bonus. Also located a pair of titipounamu through their cheeping right by the toilet-blocks just before the ferry came, which was great as they're always fun to see.
No real story behind the barbary doves, I'd simply walked down to the beach right by where I live, and was a bit shocked to see a flock of 5 of them milling around. I spent quite a bit of time deliberating between whether I should tick them off or not, (although they are established here, I still just felt weird about their provenance, not from observing them, but rather just because it felt weird to see them so close to where I live). Eventually tough I decided to count them, as I've seen them before in this area, (and I think they're sometimes recorded on eBird), as well as them showing no traits of previous captivity (eg. rings, heavy wearing to feathers, etc), as far as I could tell.
Birds:
111. Barbary Dove (Streptopelia risoria)
INVERT TALLY: 41
Insects:
32. Wetapunga (Deinacrida heteracantha)
Another collation of a few random trips over the past few months, it’s all quite lengthy, I was intending to get this out before my Tutukaka pelagic but that’s since passed, so I’ll post the write-up for that and a few of my other trips this month, as soon as possible.
First two trips were in late August after my mock exams, where I went out to Ambury and Tiritiri respectively. Whilst I didn’t get anything ‘new’ at Ambury it was still a good day, had some nice views of skylarks sulking around in the grass, and one of them taking a sand bath. Although I did see banded dotterels at the site for the first time (a good sized flock all in breeding plumage), as well as good views (or at least better, as all the birds were scurrying around on the peninsula which is fenced off) of the wrybills, so overall a nice day and a good break.
After my mocks ended I finally took another trip to Tiritiri, the day started off well, with a juvenile hihi flying right into my face! Hovering in front of me, perching on the boardwalk, then buzzing off back into the undergrowth. Nothing else much notable happened during the day, with me walking down to Hobb’s Beach at dusk to have another shot at petrels. Walked up and down the beach (from the Kawerau Track to the Wharf) a couple times, not seeing much except penguins scuttling in from the sea to their burrows. Until as I rounded a bend my torchlight caught a small black shape, with blue feet!!! Now if you didn’t know there’s 2 main nesting petrels on Tiritiri, one of them the oi (grey-faced petrel), is a larger bird with as you can tell from the english name a grey face and the other the common diving petrel a tiny football shaped bird, notably having vividly blue foot! As I enjoy tiny cute little birds, the diving was my main target, and also the one I was expecting least, so I was very excited to say the least. It scurried further into a burrow as I approached, so I turned off my light and sat outside hoping to get some more views of the wee thing, but I only heard wings flapping and then it was gone. The burrow it had been in was really small, and more like a tunnel than a burrow, so I assume the petrel was only prospecting or something. Didn’t see much else that night, although a wetapunga pair in the same manuka/kanuka strand I had seen one in last time was neat. Didn’t get on to oi or any other targets that night. Next day I decided to try and find a spotless crake, although I've ‘seen’ it this year, I'll be honest the view was borderline tickable, also I still haven’t even seen them all that well which is something I must remedy by the end of this year.. As you can tell I did not get on to them with this trip either, after maybe an hour or so of waiting I got distracted by some large swarms of backswimmers on the edge of the pond (The one down by the bunkhouse). Not remember having ever seen them before, I took out my phone to take some photos (to serve as a record and to upload on iNaturalist), the photos came out awful though, so I inched closer to get some better ones, which ended up in me precariously holding my phone over the pond, and with a single twitch, plop it went, tumbling into the murky abyss. Thankfully although the pool is a deep brown colour the bottom near shore wasn’t all too deep, so after throwing aside my bag and binocs, I went a noodling in the pond, thankfully dredging out my phone and it worked just fine after! Nothing else much happened on the island and I left with diving petrel as my only new addition.
After that I’ve taken 2 trips out to Mangere/Ambury, one before my finals and the other after I’d done most of them, (I’m taking this trip whilst I still have 2 exams left as I have a really large gap [not till mid nov]). The first one I went birding with a guy called Jackson, he was an American tourist only a year or so older than me that I met online, they’re travelling around the country for a couple of months before going off to Aus. It was great to bird and talk with someone with the same/similar interests as me, although we didn’t pick up any bird lifers (well for myself, it was one of his first days in NZ so he picked up quite a few), a lot of scanning up and down the waterwork canal we believed had payed off with a ‘pure enough’ looking grey duck, but after reviewing the face pattern was too muddled and it had to remain at hybrid level. We also had a hybrid pied x black stilt, which aren’t all too uncommon around there. I did pick up some neat inverts as we did a bit of flipping so the day was still quite good.
Second trip I did was also quite nice, again nothing new for the year/life but some good views of birds I don’t see too often and picked up some birds I hadn’t seen at Mangere/my jurisdiction on eBird before. Again (but not on the trip with Jackson unfortunately as the tides were too low I think) picked out some wrybills and a singleton banded dotterel on the peninsula. After that did some aimless wandering and scanning around trying to find a pair of tattlers (grey-tailed, they’ve been summering here for at least a couple years I believe but I’m still yet to see them) which turned out fruitless, as all bird shapes were lost in the grey blob of non-descript godwits roosting far off. A yellowhammer off to the side of the trail was nice, as I see those very uncommonly and it allowed me to get my first photos of one, as I was deciding to head off to the waterworks I came across a dead seabird with it’s head missing for some reason which was pretty surprising, after some examination (super long legs, greyish colouration, wee sized thing, black-band on tail tip) and photos I determined it was a white-faced storm petrel. After sifting some debris and giving it a small very makeshift grave, I started heading back thinking I’d give the water treatment plant a look as I was more likely to pick up at least a few new birds there when suddenly the roosting shore-birds finally began too move due to the receding tide, flocking out on the mudflats, and conveniently some were actually quite close! I had my first group of ruddy turnstones for this locality assembling on the rocks near to the path, climbing down and standing on the margin of the rocks to scan the mudflats and the now writhing brown mass of shorebirds I still could not pick out a tattler. There were some wrybills in front, large numbers of knots and godwits but sadly nothing new, although it’s still an amazing spectacle to be confronted with such a large number of birds. After that I headed home, stopping at a small wetland reserve on my way where I again searched for spotless crake, but I again wasn’t able to see one.
Birds:
112. Common Diving-Petrel ! (Pelecanoides urinatrix)
INVERT TALLY: 50
Arachnids:
4. Bronze Hopper (Helpis minitabunda) [Garden]
5. White-banded House Jumper (Maratus griseus) [Garden]
6. Silver Orb Spider (Leucauge dromedaria) [Garden]
Insects:
33. Garden soldier fly (Exaireta spinigera) [Garden]
34. Steel blue ladybird (Halmus chalybeus) [Garden]
35. Swamp crane fly (Zealandotipula novarae) [Garden]
36. Acantholybas brunneus (Hemipteran) [Garden]
Platyhelminthes:
1. Blue garden flatworm (Caenoplana coerulea) [Mangere WTP]
Molluscs:
4. Leathery Sea slug (Onchidella nigricansis) [Shore next to Mangere WTP]
