Birds

The above little guys were everywhere, introduced to make NZ more "homey," just like they were here!

We did see lots and lots of native birds, however - and we got photos of a few of them! Wish we could have captured more, but we did pretty good just taking snapshots on our walks, and had a lot of fun trying!

Kakariki:
A pair of Yellow-Eyed Penguins:
Variable Oystercatchers:
Takahe: he wouldn't turn around so I could take a photo of his red beak and face!
White Faced Heron:
I think that I remember them calling this a Buller's Albatross, but I'm not absolutely sure: We also saw a Royal Albatross, but didn't get a photo.
Putangitangi, Paradise Duck: the female has the white head, and the the male has the dark one.

"Skags:"
A hobbit town of dens for little blue penguins:
The best shot I got of these beautiful birds, which fish all day unless they are breeding. They are tiny and have wonderful iridescent blue feathers. You can watch them come home from the ocean at dusk - unfortunately, we hit the sanctuary at noon.
Chaffinch: (introduced)
Mohoua - maybe! I'm not sure!
Kaka: He has brilliant orange feathers under his wings, and wasn't at all afraid of us - I posted an earlier photo of him sitting on top of our car!
Matata:
Kereru: New Zealand Pigeon: These are much larger than our pigeons, and have bright iridescent feathers, blue back and green neck.
Fantail: these birds were very busy and fast - we saw them quite a lot, but this is the best photo: doesn't show much - you can maybe get an idea of the tail, however:
This is the best shot I got of the very elusive bellbird. We frequently heard their wonderful call , but we rarely saw them unless they were flying very very fast away from us:
Sure look like Canadian geese! Only saw them once, a long way from home!
Stilt:
Another flightless bird, the weka - I think that the next two photos are of the same kind of bird, but not absolutely sure! One black, one brown:


As I mentioned, we did see a kiwi, in a sanctuary, and also a couple tui, flying between trees. A miromiro and lots of warblers. A spoonbill and white heron and other sea and shore birds - and a lot of birds which we have no idea what to call! Harrier hawks, some kind of black and white crow. And the bird songs! Walking in the woods was a continual concert of unknown calls, I often wished for a recorder. The woods were full, but the mud flats where the tide went out had surprisingly few birds, especially when compared to our shores.

Ferns

Home again! Back to a foot of snow, with the usual piles around sidewalks and driveways - nice that it isn't too cold, however. Makes for a much easier transition. . . .

Since we didn't keep up with any serial accounting of our trip, I thought I'd go back and do some blogs on specific topics which showed up often in the thousands of photo's we took. For today, some of the incredible ferns we saw! (I need to figure out how to upload a slide show!)

New Years Day

We have arrived on the West Coast, and on New Year's Day we took a peek at the Fox Glacier. Against all predictions the sky was clear and so we we left the hotel at 8 AM (glad we had not partied till midnight the night before). We walked to the bottom of the left side of the glacier, then went to the other side (there is a river running out of the ice) where we got our best view after a pretty steep trek. (See above- you can barely make out Mt Cook in the background.) We had to ford a couple streams to get to this outlook point: the worse was 5 minutes before we reached the view at the end of the hour hike. It was touch and go whether we actually crossed, but we did it - an adventure!


On the way we got a peek at the full extent of this glacier. It is unusual in that it flows below tree line! In this one you cannot see Mt Cook because of the clouds. Hard to show the full scale in a photo.


Happy New Year to you all - it's old hat to us, been 2010 here for 17 hours. . . .We were just watching the live fireworks in Paris. :-D

Highlights of the last 10 days

In Dunedin, we went on a fantastic nature trip with Chris from Back to Nature Tours. Bill and Jackie recommended him, and we really enjoyed this trip. He drove us around the peninsula, where we saw many many water birds, and up to the Albatross Center, where we got a good look at a large white albatross. No photo, though: we were looking into the sun, so they didn't work out.
Then we climbed down a huge sand dune to a beach where yellow eyed penguins nest. Here we are part way down, where there was still a path!

These crazy birds nest at the top of the dunes, and, as you know, cannot fly, so they hop all the way up. And believe me, it is a lot of work, because I had to do it too. So here is a photo of part of the dune (I didn't get the top!) with the penguin on his way up, and a blown-up version, so you can actually see the bird. In the first photo he is pretty much in the center: that white spot.




And here is Marcia struggling back up slippery dune.


Christmas and Milford Sound:

We arrived in Manapouri at the Captains Lookout, overlooking Lake Manapouri. Spectacular!

On Christmas morning we set off for Milford Sound, a 2-hour drive over a high pass. Rain and fog greeted us, but the cruise on the sound was still very nice.

And lots of bottlenose dolphins in front of the bow on the way back:

Back at the B&B Marcia prepared our favorite summer dish for Christmas dinner: red-white and green (tomato-basil-camembert pasta)


On "Boxing Day" it rained all day, so we stayed put at our very comfy Captains Lookout, I was reading from a selection of Dutch books - Harry Mulisch: a surprising treat left by some visitors from the Netherlands.

Queenstown:

We drove to Queenstown on December 27. On the way, the weather turned sunny and warm again. In the afternoon we ascended Bobs Peak by gondola, spent a wonderful sunny afternoon admiring the view, gawking at the tourists, watching the luge riders, briefly hiking, and watching the para-gliders take off with their "payloads." Who knows how much those rides cost - but it was fascinating enough to watch from the solid ground!



The next day we also had sun, and spent a wonderful time on a Central Otago wine tour. We are learning a lot about NZ wines which we had never heard of - lots delicious!

Apologies to those of you who are on our list. We finally figured out how to upload smaller photos, so are editing the earlier posts to make more room on the blog - hope you are tolerant of repeated notices!