The Not So Elusive Bar-tailed Godwit

 One of my target birds for this trip was the Bar-tailed Godwit, a shorebird that breeds on the Yukon delta in Alaska then flies 7,500 miles non-stop to New Zealand with most of them landing on the flats at Miranda on the Firth of Thames where they spend the summer bulking back to fly back to Alaska in March (They do make a stop in China on the way back, though).

After we spent Thursday morning searching for Blue Ducks, we drove up to Miranda to the Pūkorokoro Shorebird Centre where we managed to book a accommodation for two nights at the shorebird centre itself, a step up from Tony's. Here we have a great room with kitchen, a bedroom (with two singles, unfortunately) an a private bathroom.

We arrived in the late afternoon after a drive on mostly uncrowded back roads, just in time for the birds. The end of the Firth of Thames has enormous shallow flats that the birds feed on and shorebirds are driven up the flats as the tide comes in and gather in huge flocks right near the shore. The tides this week are high in the late afternoon and early morning and they are not spring tides, so the birds are a bit further out and only visible at the end of the day.

We arrived just after high tide and hustled over to the flats to see what was there. What was there was tens of thousands Bar-tailed Godwits, thousands of South Island Oystercatchers and hundreds of Red Knots, Wrybills and Pacific Golden-Plovers...and one leucistic oystercatcher. After watching for awhile, we went off to a quick dinner at the local pub and collapsed for the night.

We slept in this morning for the first time since leaving Waiheke as the morning high tide was before sunrise and there were no birds on the flats when we went over to the blinds at about 9am. Not all was lost as there is a large fresh water pond behind the dunes and it is well populated with birds. Lots of ducks, mostly Mallards, but also Gray Teal, Australasian Shovelers and Dabchicks (New Zealand Grebes). There were also Black Swans aplenty and hundreds of Pied Stilts.

We spent the afternoon resting a bit before going back to be amazed by the Godwits and Oystercatchers again.