Bird Sites and Sounds in New Zealand

11/03/2025

Of the two glaciers that descend from the highest section of the Southern Alps Franz Josef is the easiest to access, though today viewing is more distant than in the past if you are not using an aircraft to do so. Compared to 30 years ago when I first saw it the lower part of the glacier is now hiding around a corner and covered in grey stones; before this it was really in your face, massive, white and blue.

Nature-wise it is more interesting these days to witness the succession of vegetation from bare rock and gravel to mature Southern Rātā forest. Unfortunately, birds tend to be in low densities, no doubt caused by high densities of mammalian predators, but there are reasonable numbers of Bellbirds and Brown Creepers. Kea often come down from the mountains and nearby forest to Franz Josef township, especially later in the day, to try their luck at scavenging food left behind by human visitors.

Franz Josef Glacier photo taken in 2005 before it significantly retreated up its valley.

Brown Creeper|Pīpipi photo by Francesco Veronesi from Italy - South Island - New Zealand_FJ0A4501, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=65587213

02/03/2025

The eastern shore of Lake Wairarapa is the premier site for watching wading birds in the Wairarapa. Being fresh water, it regularly attracts special wading bird species more at home in freshwater environments such as Black-fronted Dotterel, Sharp-tailed Sandpiper and Pectoral Sandpiper. These last two species are similar-looking and scarce enough to be sought after by keen birdwatchers in New Zealand.

Access is easiest from the Wairio Stopbank Track which passes through swampy areas and small pools that sometimes host Australasian Bitterns and Spotless Crakes, but more frequently New Zealand Dabchick and wildfowl. A hide at the end of the track overlooks the mouth of the Oporua Spillway, an artificial watercourse used to help drain the lake after heavy rain. Carrying on past the hide takes you onto the mudflats, and between October and March the prospect of finding some special waders.

Sharp-tailed Sandpiper photograph attributed to PotMart186, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

03/02/2024

Skylarks are almost certainly the best songster amongst the bird species introduced to New Zealand. Their song is a cascade of notes usually given in flight, with the bird often being difficult to see as it flutters around at height. Apparently about 10% of their song is mimicry and you can sometimes hear good copies of the calls and songs of other birds coming down from on high.

I made a recording of their song last spring that has recently been used as a Sound Escape by BBC Countryfile: https://ms.player.fm/series/the-plodcast-1181287/sound-escape-153-bathe-in-stunning-spring-skylark-song-all-the-way-from-new-zealand

Skylark photo by Timothy Collins. Wikimedia Commons This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

06/01/2024

Mapara Reserve, Waikato
Random NZ birding site #2
The Mapara Reserve in rural Waikato between Te Kuiti and Taumaranui is one of the best places in New Zealand to see Kokako. Long-term pest control has maintained and boosted the population of this skilled songster. A loop track runs atop a ridge for a significant part of its length and also along quite a steep spur. Tawa trees along the spur are a favourite of Kokako when they are singing, especially in the early morning and late evening. The openness of tawa foliage also makes the birds easier to spot. A few years ago I was treated to close views of a singing bird which also gave a slow wingbeat display. Unfortunately it was before I was recording bird song.
The quality of the track varies according to the amount of work DoC is doing in the area – the pest control tends to be pulsed. The track along the spur is best walked uphill as it can be slippery underfoot, but unfortunately the track junction off the main track can be easily missed. Another section of the track can be overgrown with brambles.
Other special birds in the reserve include North Island Robin, Whitehead, and the latter’s nest parasite the Long-tailed Cuckoo.
Photo of Kokako is by Matt Binns, licenced under creative commons 69029168@N00/1962834042" rel="ugc" target="_blank">https://www.flickr.com/photos/69029168@N00/1962834042 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kokako.jpg

23/12/2023

Tauranga Harbour

Random NZ birding site #1

A huge harbour about 40 km long, it tends to hide the thousands of wading birds that make it home well. Wader roosts are often difficult to access, with many on Matakana Island or sandbanks well offshore. Sightings of waders can be obtained of distant birds on mudflats from many roads leading to the western edge of the harbour from Athenree and Bowentown in the north to Tauranga city in the south. A couple of high tide roosts in the middle section are accessible. Une just north of the end of Matahui Road can hold thousands of Bar-tailed Godwits with smaller numbers of Knots and oystercatchers, but spring tides cover it and the birds then roost elsewhere. The Tinopai roost is just south of the Cooney Reserve, on a sandbank offshore. A telescope is needed to identify the large numbers of waders often present, species similar to those at Matahui.

Mangroves are near the southern edge of their range here. Generally stunted in stature, they fringe the harbour, including the two roosts featured above. Banded Rails hide amongst them and can be seen with patience and a good degree of luck Other marshland denizens include Fernbird, Bittern and Spotless Crake. In small numbers these inhabit some of the swampier bays and inlets such as at Athenree, Katikati, Matua and Waikareao Bay.

16/11/2023

This is the time of year that, if you are lucky, young Shining Cuckoos can be found in New Zealand. The Grey Warbler foster parents are not so lucky as they rush around gathering invertebrates for a bird larger than themselves. When being fed it almost looks like the cuckoo chick could swallow its foster parent! Shining Cuckoos seem to be most common in the North Island with Zealandia in Wellington being a good place to search for young birds.
The sharp begging calls alert you to their presence well before you see the bird, though being so high pitched it is difficult to pinpoint their location. The warblers are likely to give the cuckoo’s position away eventually - they are more visible as they are so busy, whilst the cuckoo tends to sit on a branch getting waited upon.
HANZAB (https://nzbirdsonline.org.nz/sites/all/files/292_Shining%20Cuckoo.pdf) states the begging calls are similar to those of Grey Warbler chicks, though there may be detail differences as the recordings and spectrographs with this post illustrate. The cuckoo calls may be slightly lower in pitch and the pitch descends over the call, whereas the Grey Warbler call ascends in pitch. See the insets below the spectrographs for this detail. Do the adult Grey Warblers detect this difference? That cuckoos are still common suggests that if they do they accept it as normal enough.
Recording of Shining Cuckoo fledgling: https://xeno-canto.org/842323
Recording of Grey Warbler fledglings: https://xeno-canto.org/842325
Apologies that I am not a bird photographer. Great photos of Shining Cuckoo can be found here: https://www.nzbirdsonline.org.nz/species/shining-cuckoo and Grey Warbler here: https://nzbirdsonline.org.nz/species/grey-warbler

05/11/2023

Lake Alexandrina is a large lake west of Lake Tekapo accessed off Godley Peaks Road. Its outlet stream, which flows into the much smaller Lake McGregor, provides the spectacle of multiple nesting Australasian Crested Grebes https://nzbirdsonline.org.nz/species/australasian-crested-grebe . Close views of this beautiful waterbird are almost guaranteed, with two fitfully displaying between sleeps just offshore in the lake on my visit. Recently the willows along the stream have been pruned to protect trout spawning habitat. Most of the willows have been pollarded and are starting to regrow from their trunks. Hopefully this will not majorly affect grebe nests along the stream in the long term. If you visit this site watch the nests from a respectful distance.

05/11/2023

Godley Peaks Road from just outside Lake Tekapo passes important lakes for birds and birders on its way to the Cass River. Lake Murray is a small ephemeral lake not far from the Glenmore Station homestead. A recently-erected fence will hopefully protect the lake from stock and the birds from people who might overwise get too close. This site can and should be viewed from the roadside. Critically endangered Black Stilts https://nzbirdsonline.org.nz/species/black-stilt often feed along its margins when some mud is exposed. On Thursday, however, its level was a bit too high and ducks were the main attraction. No Black Stilts in the morning when I visited, but two were reported by another birder in the afternoon harassing some Pied Stilts. Go the all blacks!

30/10/2023

The Otira Valley Track, which starts near the summit of Arthur’s Pass, takes you through alpine rock gardens into the habitat of Rock Wrens. This is probably the second easiest site in New Zealand to find Rock Wrens (after Homer Tunnel’s eastern portal, which now seems to have more complicated access than it used to). The species is one of the more difficult endemic New Zealand land birds to see, often requiring patience and a degree of luck.
At this site you walk for an hour or so along a fairly gently ascending but generally uneven rocky path to a footbridge over the infant river, scanning for Blue Ducks on the river as you go. After the bridge the track becomes a mountaineering route, but still straightforward to follow, and you start to scan the rocks for movement or a tiny bobbing bird atop a rock. High pitched calls similar to Rifleman often give the species’ presence away.
Yesterday BirdingPal (see http://www.birdingpal.org/) Cole Burrell from the US and I found a pair of Rock Wrens about 200 m past the bridge. The only other bird of interest along the track was a distant Kea. If you walk the track remember this is an alpine environment and the weather can change suddenly, from warm sun to windy, wet and freezing cold. There is avalanche risk sometimes in winter and spring.

Rock Wren call yesterday can be heard here: https://xeno-canto.org/839152

28/10/2023

In mid-October Long-tailed Cuckoos return to New Zealand from their tropical island holidays. Compared to Shining Cuckoo their calls and song are less well known, to both birders and the general public. The advertising call (song?) is a shrieking ‘whissht’ repeated at spaced but regular intervals. It is ventriloquial, meaning it is difficult to locate the calling bird. Sometimes a chattering call is heard, which has an almost laughing quality. Long-tailed Cuckoos often call/sing from late afternoon right through the night and next morning before seemingly needing a siesta to recover for a few hours in the afternoon.
Greenfinches have a buzzy song that is quite similar to the shriek call of the Long-tailed Cuckoo. It sounds a bit like the song is wheezily and buzzily saying its colour – ‘greeen’, and it is similar enough that when a Long-tailed Cuckoo recording is played in the field a Greenfinch sometimes answers back. Have a listen and see how similar you think the calls are.
https://soundcloud.com/user-131288896-269355274/long-tailed-cuckoo-shriek?si=8c33dc137dcf4126b7530a28b9e108bc&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

https://soundcloud.com/user-131288896-269355274/greenfinch-green-song?si=8c33dc137dcf4126b7530a28b9e108bc&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

Listen to Greenfinch Green Song by User 131288896 on

27/10/2023

The underwatched Karamea Estuary offers an opportunity to find something unusual amongst its diverse birdlife. Bar-tailed Godwits and a small number of Knots join resident native waders in the warmer months. Sometimes scarce and rare waders turn up, the most recent rarity being a Northern New Zealand Dotterel. In the estuary’s marshy margins there are small populations of Fernbirds, crakes and Australasian Bitterns. The presence of bitterns is more marked by road signs asking motorists to slow down than sightings of the birds themselves.
Access to the mudflats is best from a track off SH67 signed estuary access. Be prepared to get wet feet as one or more channels needs to be forded. Note the tide times and be off the flats within 3 hours of high tide. The swampy edges can be observed from SH67, and the coast road just north of town.

22/10/2023

With the Birds NZ West Coast atlas camp. Yesterday Mats Olsthoorn, Richard Nichol and I went to the very little visited Saltwater Lagoon between Hari Hari and Whataroa. The lagoon is huge and a special West Coast experience. The track is a challenge with numerous boggy bits, windfalls and interesting stream crossings. Recommended for the more adventurous and fit birder, more as an experience rather than for the birds. This is one of the few places Riflemen still exist close to sea level though.