A Spring Diary of Awaawaroa Bird Life
December 2003

What an interesting “birdy” first spring we have had at Awaawaroa Bay Eco-Village.  For the last couple of weeks we have been visited daily by a White-Faced Heron that is attracted to our small pond by its abundant frog population.  The heron doesn’t seemed too bothered by us and either strolls away or lofts gently into a nearby tree if we come too close.

A pair of paradise shelducks carried on a protracted few week long courtship early on in Spring.  The elaborate and noisy courtship included frequent roostings on dead tree limbs and loud calling to each other across the gully!  They also hung out around the pond.  Hopefully they finally managed to sort things out and have gone else where in the valley to nest.

The very large “dead” puriri tree in front of our house, that still manages a few patches of leaves, hosts numerous different exotic bird species, starlings, sparrows, and finches have all successfully nested there. This amazing tree also still produces a few berries and a pair of kereru are currently daily visitors.  

We often get a visit from a Little Shag that has also discovered the easy pickings in the pond.  When it gets disturbed in the pond it flies to the top most dead puriri branch and waits for us to go away busily preening its wet feathers in the breeze.  

Mother mallard hatched 4 babies this year  - 3 weeks on an there are now 2 left  She hatched 8 last year and ended up with 3 adolescents (probably plenty for any mother to handle!)   A pair of brown quails love the cleared patches on our land but they don’t seem to have little ones at the moment.  The cock pheasants give us a great fright when they burst out of cover when you get too close making loud rapid “kok kok” calls and rapid wing beats.  A mother pheasant and her babies got terrified by the lawn mower in the orchard a couple of weeks ago.  

Flocks of Eastern Rosella regularly fly through with their loud raucous calls letting everyone know they are about.  

The peacocks also want everyone to know they are around.  They sit on the fence posts on the ridge lines and “meow” loudly and the call echoes across the valley.   

A kingfisher has adopted the very top of our solar hot water heater over flow pipe as his preferred hunting vantage point - I put it there for him of course!.   The tuis stop by to enjoy the flowering harakeke and the flowers on the “dead” puriri.  

The grey warblers sing to us daily, when the sun is out, as do the sky larks.  The NZ pipits hang out on the road, a pair every 100 metres or so,  catching insects and playing “chicken” with the passing vehicles.  

The Australasian harriers patrol the skies of the valley hunting the mice in the kikuyu.  Fantails catch the bugs we disturb in the compost.

A swallow made her mud nest for the 6th year in our little old tank wood shed.  The 4 or 5 young have fledged and enjoy complicated aerobatic manoeuvres over the pond catching the bugs that the frogs leave for them. The moreporks visit at night & shock us with their surprise loud shrieks close by.  

If you watch out and move carefully and quietly you can sometimes catch sight of a crake in the wetland but they are a secretive bird and soon disappear if they notice you.

At the shell bank out in Awaawaroa Bay one pair of Variable Oystercatchers has hatched babies so far this season but the 2 or 3 pairs of NZ Dotterels lost their nests to a high tide and had to start all over again.I couldn’t end this report without mentioning the hoards of pukekos.  They love this valley and thrive to epidemic proportions.  In our garden they have developed a taste for banana palms (which they totally destroy) water melon, citrus fruit, frogs, any thing that you plant that might have a bulb on it like garlic and daffodils.  When ever we approach the parents start a loud squawking and the young ones duck into the kikuyu and totally disappear until the parents stop their carrying on.