Using the thin excuse of 25
years of marriage, wife Meryl and I dashed off to escape Britain’s shortening,
grey days for almost the whole of November.
Our special holiday itinerary took us first to Hong Kong for three
nights, then on to New Zealand for a full two weeks before unwinding with four
days in Fiji en route back home.
Each location had plenty going
for it, and was very different from the others, but I found New Zealand
absolutely entrancing and fascinating – a surprise around every corner.
The Lord of the Rings film cycle has brought the magic of its
amazing scenery to many more households, but I have to say that ‘in the
flesh’ it is no less impressive and, for me, its spectacle was not bettered
anywhere we went.
In truth, a fair bit of
planning had gone into our trip, and I even managed to squeeze in some research
into the prospective bird life somewhere along the way.
I had a lightweight field guide for Hong Kong, a better one for New
Zealand, and was able to find some basic ones in Fiji once I’d arrived there,
so my bird-watching did not involve too much guesswork!
It was very rewarding, too.
Of 104 species logged throughout the three weeks, 80 were entirely new to
me. Yet surprisingly I did not find
the fact I was in an entirely different part of the world that much of a problem
in terms of bird identification. I
think that’s partly because many were spectacular and difficult to mistake,
partly because NZ and Fiji had limited numbers of often-endemic species –
which made them less easy to mistake – partly because birds out there often
seemed a little tamer, and because I had boned-up on the likeliest sights a
little before setting off.
First bird of the holiday was
the black kite (pictured), many of which soared above and
between the skyscrapers of Hong
Kong. Despite the high-pace, urban
style of this cosmopolitan location, there are a surprising number parks,
gardens and other greenery – which housed some colourful and impressive birds
including several species of bulbul and laughing thrush, the oriental magpie
robin, Japanese white-eye, fork-tailed sunbird and even a small colony of
black-crowned night herons.
Black-shouldered starlings
(bigger than ours!) were common, as were crested mynahs but not as regular as
the latter’s cousin – the common mynah, which was the only species I saw in
all three locations.
On the wooded slopes of
Victoria Peak, there were more black kites, along with common tailorbird and
large-billed crow. Only two birds
we see in England were spotted in Hong Kong – tree sparrows and a couple of
magpies.
New Zealand was rather a
different story, as (possibly home-sick) settlers from Europe in the 19th
century brought over a number of species that have since made a major success of
resettling there: Greenfinch, chaffinch, goldfinch, blackbird, redpoll, dunnock,
song thrush, house sparrow, mallard, starling, yellowhammer, skylark and
pheasant were all seen regularly and were a somehow soothing presence among the
otherwise entirely new sights in that country about as far away from England as
you can get.
Others may have had slightly
different – and even Maori - names down there, but there was no mistaking the
great-crested grebe, oystercatcher, cormorant, Canada goose, coot, rock dove and
purple gallinule.
So, some familiar sights, but
far more brought that shiver of excitement as I realised I was seeing something
I’d never seen before and had me grabbing for the field guide.
In North Island delights included the tui, with its fluent song and white
throat wattles contrasting with its otherwise dark body, the Australian magpie
(more like a crow) which produced a more fabulous ‘song’ still, the frenzied
flitting of the fantail, and the pukeko (gallinule) wandering warily but closer
even than our moorhen would dare do.
The NZ kingfisher is different
to ours, hunting anywhere not just near water, and various ducks – scaup,
shoveler and teal – were similar but clearly separate species from those in
the UK. Australasian gannets are marked differently from their
northern hemisphere cousins, and while the south-island oystercatcher is the
same as ours, the variable species is not, often appearing as an all-black bird,
albeit with the familiar red bill.
The range of shags was
amazing, but of the coastal and sea-going
birds it won’t surprise you to learn
that the albatrosses (one pictured) were the most awesome.
I was disappointed at first, when visiting the only onshore nesting
colony of royal albatrosses – by now on the south island, in Otago – to
discover we were not being allowed up to the hides because the birds were only
just arriving and establishing their nest sites.
However, as we were standing in the car park, it suddenly went dark as
one of these magnificent fliers cast a huge shadow as it graced us with a couple
of passes.
 |
Later, on a whale-watching
trip (yes, we saw three sperm whales and a school of dusky dolphins), I spent as
much time watching above the waterline as a wandering albatross cruised by,
along with the smaller mollymawks, a giant petrel or two, several Westland black
petrels, cape pigeons (another tubenose, despite the name) and a brief cloud of
Hutton’s shearwaters. What, with
these and the whales, my camera saw plenty of action that day. |
Many of the coastal birds were
very distinctive and (the book would usually confirm) could only really be one
thing. Pied stilts and white-faced
herons were common, impressive Caspian terns patrolled the inlets, the only
gulls on offer were the easily identified red-billed, black-billed and
black-backed (again a little different from ours).
Forest birds were also readily
identified in the main: tomtit, bellbird, grey warbler, silvereye and NZ robin
were, in the main, not ‘little brown jobs’.
NZ’s version of the wood pigeon is a striking two-tone featuring green,
the rifleman is rather like our wren, long-tailed parrots called kakas drifted
lazily from tree-top to tree-top, and the elaborately decorated Californian
quail was seen among the branches as well as scuttling along the ground.
Other common birds seen just
about everywhere were the spur-winged plover,
Australian harrier and paradise
shelduck, but perhaps the single highlight in NZ was our close encounter with a
kea (picture opposite) – the cheeky alpine parrot that thrives on human company (and scraps). After stopping in a lay-by en route to the Franz Joseph
Glacier what should hop jauntily out of the undergrowth but one of these
iridescent scavangers. He spurned
the banana we offered, but seemed happy with our offering of dried fruit.
He came close enough for a few close-up pictures, so I took my chance.
On to Fiji, and I added around
20 further colourful and distinctive birds to my master list, even though I had
no independent transport this time - and we were meant to be relaxing by the
pool!
The common mynah was here
again, hopping on to tables and chairs in the breakfast room for scraps, and
I’d seen spotted doves elsewhere, in Hong Kong.
But many of the gloriously named birds in Fiji were only to be found in
and around its chain of islands. I
was able to note the wattled honeyeater, the Polynesian triller, red-vented
bulbul, red-faced parrotfinch, Vanikoro broadbill, black-faced shrikebill,
white-rumped swiftlet, white-collared kingfisher and red avadavat, among others.
The birding highlight in Fiji
was probably the sight of a brightly-coloured collared lory hopping among the
palm fronds. That almost matched
the pleasure of watching England beat Australia in the final of the world cup
– on a big screen at the hotel complex’s golf and rackets club, surrounded
by disgruntled Australians and New Zealanders (and with the benefit of an
unspecified amount of beer, adding to the warm inner glow … Well, it seemed to
suit the occasion!)
For the record, we organised the basic itinerary through a company called All Ways Pacific, based in Old Amersham, Bucks, and they did an excellent job of flights, accommodation, one or two of the trips we undertook, and the connections all worked without a hitch. I could recommend them … and I can most certainly recommend New Zealand, which is a cast-iron guarantee for a memorable holiday.