Are we twitchers?

You may have noticed that I've been publishing a lot of bird pictures lately. Actually, I've just realized how much I like having birds in my life. I don't think we're classified as twitchers (a birdwatcher whose main aim is to collect sightings of rare birds) as we don't seek out only rare birds, carry binoculars, high-powered telescopes, notebooks and wear matching khaki hats and clothing with lots of pockets, but, we do like to take note of and study the birds around us. Now that we're in a different country and hemisphere, we're finding even the most ordinary of local birds very interesting to see and listen to.

Along the same lines, we've also encountered an unusual (to us) bird phenomenon here as well. Almost every little picnic area along the roadside has, usually, at least one feral chicken walking around. They're usually roosters and must be escapees from somewhere with no natural predators to pick them off. We had one hop into the van when we left the door open. We hit the jackpot at one campsite with a whole flock of feral fowl! I was really enjoying watching them strut about, but, not so much when they all stood outside the van and started crowing at 3 a.m.

On our way to the Coromandel peninsula we visited the Miranda Shorebird Sanctuary. There, we learned to identify a few of the birds we'd been seeing. These are Pied Stilts, a particularly long-legged and graceful bird that make a sound like a dog barking.

These long-beaked birds are Godwits. They fly all the way from the Arctic to breed in NZ.

Black swans we already knew. They are not native to New Zealand, but, were imported from Australia. There are a lot of them around, but, we haven't seen many with cygnets, so, we were happy to see these.

Here's another portrait of a beautiful, 'ordinary' bird.

We haven't seen a lot of the native birds yet. We're unlikely to see kiwis, which are nocturnal, in the wild, but, we definitely hope to see tuis, wekas, bellbirds, fantails and other beauties soon. Expect more bird pictures in future posts!