The rainy weather from yesterday continued on through the night into today, making any type of birding, hiking or going outdoors impossible. I had a bit of a shock when I found a Rifleman trapped inside the building! I took a few pictures and released it back outside.
Rifleman
The rain still hadn't cleared up after a long while of waiting, so I decided to head out with a umbrella to see what I could find. There wasn't much to see in the pouring rain except a few Blackbirds and Tomtits.
Eurasian Blackbird
Tomtit
After my walk, the rain slowed and cleared, so me and my family decided to walk the Kea Point Track. As we walked, the clouds cleared and we got beautiful views of mountains and snow capped peaks!
View of the alpine peaks
Other birds along the footpath included Tomtits, Chaffinches and Yellowhammers. Even with the lack of birds, the walk and atmosphere was amazing, just walking the track was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Tomtit
Chaffinch and Yellowhammer
We had booked a glacier watching tour for the afternoon, so we decided to slowly head back the trail without reaching Kea Point due to the tight time. The glacier tour was in Tasman Lake, where we would get on small inflatable boats and look at icebergs and the Tasman Glacier. Turns out that Tasman Glacier is the largest glacier in New Zealand, though it is slowly shrinking. 40 years ago, the Tasman Lake was non-existent, though due to global warming the Lake is now around 8KM long!
Glacier
By the time the tour finished, it was already dark and the rain had started up again, but the weather forecast for the next day seemed to look up. With that, we called it a day.
Day 6 - Mt. Cook to Queenstown
We woke to beautiful weather, a huge contrast to yesterday! After breakfast, I headed out and was amazed to find a flock of 8 Keas flying around the Hermitage Hotel's roof!
Kea
After getting great views of the Keas, we hurried to our next stop, which was to go on a helicopter which would fly us out to the snowy mountains where we can enjoy the beautiful scenery.
View from helicopter - amazing !
Once we were up on the mountain, we felt that we were completely unprepared, as it was so cold that within minutes I could not feel my hands! Despite this, the views were amazing and unbeatable. Truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
View from mountaintop
Since we had some time after the helicopter ride, we decided to head over to the Hooker Valley Trail to hike. Again, the views were absolutely amazing, but in terms of birds, we got great perching views of New Zealand Falcon!
New Zealand Falcon - perched!
In addition to the falcon, I also had other commoner birds, such as Grey Gerygones, Yellowhammers and Dunnocks.
Grey Gerygone
Yellowhammer
Dunnock
After the hike, we got back to our car where we started the drive to Queenstown. On the way, were going to go pass the side road to the braided rivers of Lake Pukaki just north of Glentanner Aerodrome to try and get closer views of the black stilts this time. Right at the entrance, there was a gate with signs saying"threatened species breeding area" and pictures of black stilts on it.
Sign informing people that area is important
Once me and my family arrived at the banks of the first braided river, I saw that there were many fishermen around the closer rivers, which meant the birds had to at the furthest side of the lake. With my binoculars only going up to 8x zoom, I could only see so much. I saw black swans, grey teals, paradise shelduck and much more waterfowl, but no stilt. I did manage to see a large black blob, possibly stilts, but no confirmation! Soon after, one of them took flight, and I got the confirmation - it was black stilts!
Black Stilt - distant but recognizable!
As we were leaving, we got two species of pipits - New Zealand Pipits and Eurasian Skylarks!
New Zealand Pipit
Eurasian Skylark
After the brief birding stop, we headed to a famous tourist destination for lunch : High Country Salmon. The salmon was really fresh as the fish was caught out of the pens right next to the restaurant. A must try! In terms of birds, there were a few waterbirds around the pens, which included New Zealand Scaup, Black billed Gull and Little Pied Cormorant.
New Zealand Scaup
Black Billed Gull
Little Pied Cormorant
The rest of the drive was uneventful, only with the occasional Swamp Harrier and even one New Zealand Falcon! Just before heading to Queenstown, we stopped over at Arrowtown for some maple leaves, though we were too early and we had only a few trees with them. I also got a Common Chaffinch.
Common Chaffinch
Day 7 - Queenstown
We had originally planned today we would go to Milford Sound, though the weather didn't seem to want to cooperate with out plans, as the forecast said that it was pouring over there. Because of that, we suddenly had a free day without anything planned yet! For the morning, we decided to go to the Queenstown Kiwi Park, where we could see... you guessed it, kiwi! After touring the park for a while, we decided to head back out and stroll back out to the lakefront for some sightseeing. There, I saw many common species, such as Eurasian Coots, Black Billed Gulls, Little Pied Cormorants and a Great Cormorant.
Eurasian Coot
Little Pied Cormorant
Great Cormorant
After that, we headed back to our hotel to chill out for a while. I decided to take a walk on the lakefront, which was pretty pleasant. There, I got pretty good photos of Grey Gerygones and New Zealand Fantails.
Grey Gerygone
New Zealand Fantail
By the time I got back to my hotel, it was already dark and my family decided to head out for dinner and have an early night, as we were all tired from the day's activities.
Day 8 - Queenstown
We had planned a full day at Skyline Queenstown today, though we were going to start late, so I decided to head back out on the lakeside track that I had walked yesterday afternoon. The track was way more birdy than it had been yesterday, some birds that I saw included Silvereyes, a Great Crested Grebe, Tuis, New Zealand Bellbirds and a Great Cormorant.
Silvereye
Great Crested Grebe
Tui
New Zealand Bellbird
Great Cormorant
After my walk, we took the gondola up to Skyline Queenstown, and the first thing that we did was to do some sight-seeing, which was beautiful!
View from Skyline Queenstown
After the sightseeing, we spent the day playing the Luge Rides, exploring the buildings and zip lining. There were quite a few New Zealand Pipits on the open hill, though I did not bring my camera so I couldn't get photos. The only animal that I got was a pair of mountain goats on our way down on the gondola.
Mountain Goat - iphone pic
After the gondola, we headed back to our hotel and chill out to prepare for the next day's long travel.
Day 9 - Queenstown to Dunedin
We woke up early to pack up and prepare to leave Queenstown and start the four hour drive to Dunedin. on our way, we stopped over to look at people doing the bungee jump.
Bungee jump river
After what seemed like eternity, we finally arrived at the Distinction Dunedin Hotel to drop off our stuff. After that, we drove out to Harington Point to do a wildlife cruise. We were going with Monarch Wildlife Cruises, famous for close encounters with different types of marine life. Our first wildlife encounter was not a bird, it was a few New Zealand Sea Lions!
New Zealand Sea Lion
Once we reached the waters off Taiaroa Head, we hit an entire feeding frenzy of different species of albatrosses, including White Capped Albatrosses, Buller's Albatrosses and Northern Royal Albatrosses.
White Capped Albatross
Buller's Albatross
Northern Royal Albatross
It was really amazing for me as it was my first time seeing albatrosses, I would have never imagined that my first time would be so close to them and I was overwhelmed by the amount of them circling our boat! Other seabirds that I saw was Otago Shag, Southern Royal Albatross and White Chinned Petrel.
Otago Shag
Southern Royal Albatross
White Chinned Petrel
We neared the shore to look for some fur seals, and we did get a few resting on the rocks, giving great views for everyone to admire at!
New Zealand Fur Seal
Suddenly, I noticed a Northern Royal soaring over the cliff with the lighthouse next to it, so I quickly snapped a few shots of it. I also spotted a few Spotted Shags on the cliff edges and a juvenile Royal Spoonbill on the trees by the cliff.
Northern Royal Albatross
Spotted Shag
Royal Spoonbill
On our way back to Harington Point, I got Red billed Gulls, Sooty Shearwaters, and a few Variable Oystercatchers.
Sooty Shearwater
Variable Oystercatcher
After the pelagic, me and my family headed to the Royal Albatross Centre to see some albatross chicks and learn more about Northern Royal Albatrosses. Northern Royal Albatrosses are the only species which breed on the land itself, the other species are just visiting the area in search of food. In order to see the albatrosses, we had to join a tour. Once the tour arrived at the viewing tower, I got great views of a few chicks resting on their nests!
Northern Royal Albatross Chick
Soon after, we saw a few adult Northern Royal Albatrosses soaring, over the cliffs, making for great photo oppertunities!
Northern Royal Albatross - flying
Suddenly, we all saw one albatross preparing to land, as it had spotted a chick. I had hoped that that one Northern Royal Albatross parent would fly in to land, but when I saw it, I couldn't believe my luck! It soon started to waddle over to it's chick and began to feed it!
Northern Royal Albatross - landing!
Northern Royal Albatross - feeding
After that, we started the drive back to Dunedin in the setting sun. On the way, we stopped to look at a beautiful South Island Oystercatcher.
South Island Oystercatcher
With that, our trip to New Zealand had ended, as we flew out from Dunedin to Auckland the next day, before transiting back to Hong Kong.
Overall, I would say that this trip has been really successful, with 109 different species observed or heard! Out of that, there were 37 endemics of New Zealand seen, out of 45 which was possible for me to get. This number of birds is great, considering that I was mainly following my family's travel plans and just making stopovers along the way for birds (mainly).
To learn more about my trip, you can go to my
Ebird Trip Report to see all the species.
Thanks for all of the birding guides and my parents for planning and making this trip possible!
Happy Easter!
