At the start of August an Australian pelican was spotted at Kerikeri, way up in the far north of New Zealand. This is a most unusual vagrant for New Zealand, and it caused a bit of a stir in the birding community because there havent been any seen here since the 1970s. Then a week later a flock of fourteen pelicans was filmed by a barge operator in the Kaipara Harbour a bit further south. This was even more unusual. One of the older records was of three birds but all other vagrant pelicans have been singletons. This was the first time an actual flock had been recorded in the country, possibly even one with the potential to establish as a breeding population. Another pelican was then photographed in early September at Whangamai to the east of the Kaipara, and then at Ruakaka, but no-one is sure if that was a sixteenth/seventeenth bird or one of the others (i.e. the Kerikeri one) on the move.
I fortuitously had an Auckland trip already planned (mainly for visiting Tiritiri Matangi), and I managed to build the pelicans into the time I had with the car-pooling assistance of a local Auckland birder. The birds in these photographs are part of the flock of fourteen on the river that flows into the north end of the Kaipara harbour near Ruawai.
Photo taken 13 September 2012
