Hi Tweets-

Michael Mann and I recently returned from a flyfishing trip to New Zealand (with a few day layover in New South Wales, Australia). Although the purpose of the trip was New Zealand's North Island behemoth rainbow and brown trout, we did do a little birding as well.

Our first day in Auckland, we took a boat ride to Tititiri Matangi Island. This island reserve is special in that all introduced pests (weasels, rats, cats, etc.) have been eradicated, allowing the island to support many of the rare New Zealand endemics (some of which were reintroduced). On the island/boat ride we saw many interesting species, including: fluttering shearwater, Australasian gannet, parasitic jaeger, Buller's shearwater, flesh-footed shearwater, blue penguin, pied shag, reef heron, two oystercatchers, takahe (very rare large, flightless purple gallinule-like thing), brown teal, red-crowned parakeet, kokako, stitchbird, saddleback, bellbird and tui.

During the rest of our New Zealand sightseeing/fishing, we added birds such as whitehead, long-tailed cuckoo, 3 cormorants (shags), paradise shellduck, New Zealand scaup, New Zealand falcon, banded dotterel, wrybill, sharp-tailed sandpiper, bar-tailed godwit, white-fronted tern and sacred kingfisher.

In a couple days in Australia we recorded over 100 species even though the temperature exceeded 100 degrees most of the time. Highlights included: emu, wedge-tailed shearwater, rufous night heron, superb lyrebird, green catbird, satin bowerbird, royal spoonbill, collared sparrowhawk, brown goshawk, various common parrots, azure kingfisher, dollarbird, white-throated needletail, eastern whipbird, fairy wrens, crested shrike-tit, golden and rufous whistlers, brown treecreeper, wattlebirds, noisy friarbird, bell miner, many honeyeaters, and double-barred finch.

All told, 67 species in New Zealand and 105 in Australia, of which 19 were 'world lifers'. And, some very nice trout as well!

Good birding
Mike Wile
Redmond, WA
mikewile at attbi.com