Nature in the Rock Garden

There’s quite an expanse of sand and uneven rocky ground to cross every time I make my way from the NZMCA Park over to the ‘good’ lupin patch on the edge of the Lake Tekapo.

A large patch of ground that turns out to be home to many birds; birds that live quietly and without fuss in an area that usually sees very little foot traffic. Until the lupins are flowering that is. Of course the lupin flowering coincides with the nesting season which means there are often people blundering about in amongst the rocks or passing through (like me) to see the lupins, disturbing the nesting birds and sending them into a panic.

I found this redpoll feeding on the grasses very near the walkway as I cross to the lake edge. Redpolls usually tend to stay high in the trees moving through in flocks chattering away to each other. They are quite skittish and this one didn’t hang around too long. He’s also at the end of lens reach. Redpolls are an introduced species and are quite common in the South Island (not so much in the North Island), and are usually found at higher elevations.

As I approach the edge of a small bay there are a few Pied Stilts/Poaka which are quick to let all and sundry know there’s an intruder on her way.

I scan the rocky terrain ahead and catch sight of a flurry of movement in all directions around and over the rocks. Tiny little birds are dashing about calling little ‘chip, chip, chips’ to each other.

This is the Banded Dotterel/Tūturiwhatu, an endemic small plover (found only in NZ) whose conservation status is ‘Nationally Vulnerable’.

There are nests about and the incubating bird runs off as soon as danger approaches. The birds are well disguised amongst the rocks, and being so tiny, you don’t see them until they run. Some find a high rock to stand on so they can scan their territory, others rush off bobbing up and down and calling as they go.

The nests are shallow scrapes in the sand or gravel and are especially vulnerable to predators and unwary people stepping on them so I tread carefully as I go. The bird on the right is mid-bob. When feeding, Banded Dotterels have the classic ‘run-stop-peck-run’ foraging behaviour.

Sharing the rocky lake side with the dotterels is a bird that is higher up on conservation status than the dotterel, this one is ‘nationally endangered’. The smart looking Black-fronted Tern/Tarapirohe is another endemic bird and one I've been waiting to see at close quarters for awhile. We've see them flying near rivers and as we cross bridges but not up close until now.

The Black-fronted Tern is a small grey tern found on the braided rivers (where they mostly breed), estuaries and harbours of the eastern South Island. They move to coastal areas after breeding and some small populations also head to the North Island.

You might remember the post I did on their much more common cousins, the white fronted terns that danced in front of us on the beach at Greymouth earlier in the year. In that post I explained how the name ‘white-fronted’ refers to the forehead, where a strip of white separates the black cap from the black bill. Most other ‘capped’ terns, including the black-fronted tern, have black caps that reach the bill when in breeding plumage. You can see the distinctive black cap clearly on these birds.

There was a small colony of black-fronted terns nesting in amongst the rocks very close to the lupin patch and before I know it, I was upon a nest. Unlike the dotterels the terns stayed put until the very last moment. The bird on the left is sitting on a nest. They quickly took flight as I backed off…

...and they started dive-bombing and squawking at me. They also bombarded me with sloppy poop, I’m not sure whether that was intentional or they just happened to let go because they were flying. Whatever it was it was very effective and they have good aim; my jacket was covered in great big smelly splotches.

But I did manage to grab one quick shot of the nest! And then exited stage left as fast as I could.

I saw other people cutting through the area at various times and they all made a hasty retreat as well. Unfortunately it was a direct line through the rock garden from the NZMCA Park to town and those that didn’t take the walking track were taking a short cut straight across the nesting area.

Another pair of terns were nesting closer to the water, I stayed well away from another splattering but managed to capture them in the setting sun as they flew past. They are quite gorgeous, I love the cap and their beautiful soft grey tone, and those tiny little feet. Yes, I think these are my favourite terns.

I thought I’d tag the rabbits on the end here…well they are nature too. There’s a rabbit plague around the Church of the Good Shepherd, along the lake front and in amongst the lupins. I took these shots very early in the morning when I went to catch the sunrise. The grounds around the church were alive with rabbits. And they weren’t too worried about the humans walking in amongst them either.

This little cutie was pulling down a flowering bush….

… to have a nibble.

And this one was finishing off a bunch of lupins someone had brought him. A pest eating a pest. Perhaps that’s the answer. Corral the rabbits around the lupin patches and they’ll soon both be gone.

Waitaki Waters & Riverstone

Sunday at Waikouaiti was overcast and very cold but we decided to take a drive to Trotters Gorge, a DOC reserve & camp site inland and about 12kms north of Palmerston. The camp was closed for winter but there were a couple of tracks to walk and caves to visit. There was quite a steep ford to cross at the entrance to the park, we wouldn’t have been able to get the 5th-wheeler in had we stopped here in the summer.

The walk was average & the caves nothing to write home about, in fact they were a bit of a disappointment; very shallow more just scrapes in the limestone but there were a few cave wetas on the ceiling which helped with the interest factor. The best part was the sign on the fence near the entrance to the park. Pet Pig = Trotters Gorge...hmmmm.

Monday morning we were up & on the road bright and early heading back into Dunedin to have the van looked at. As it turned out it wasn’t major, just one of the motors on the slide-out needing to be re-aligned. After our earlier issues David in fact knew more than our Dunedin contact & he was able to re-programme it and we were back on the road after an hour or so, hauling ourselves back up those long northern hills out of Dunedin and heading for Waitaki Waters Holiday Park, just north of Oamaru.

Waitaki Waters is located on the southern side of the Waitaki River & very near the river mouth. The river’s catchment area is second only to the Clutha River & includes the glacier fed Tekapo, Pukaki & Ohau Rivers along with many others. The river is famous for it’s huge sea-run salmon & trout fisheries.

I found this photo on an article about fishing the Waitaki; pretty impressive eh?

There are two fishing crib (bach/hut) villages near the mouth on the south side of the river and during the season the river and mouth are filled with fishermen both on shore & on water. Jet boats & quad bikes are the transport of choice for many, it’s a long & hard walk down the shingle spit to the river mouth. During the whitebait season the gravel banks are lined with whitebaiters and their scoop nets.

It’s a rough coastline along this stretch and there’s obviously a reef somewhere off shore as the driftwood is littered with hundreds of large broken paua (abalone) shell. Someone has made a bit of paua & driftwood sculpture here.

At the mouth we watched as hundreds of welcome swallows swooped in low over the water feeding on thousands of tiny flies. The swallows were also resting on the gravel banks but I couldn’t get in close enough before they’d all lift and move in unison down to the next ridge.

I gave up on trying to capture them but as we made our way back along the beach I caught sight of a tiny movement in amongst the gravel which revealed itself to be a male Banded Dotterel (Tuturiwhatu), he has the chestnut breast. He led me on to a couple of very well camouflaged juveniles hunkering down in the warm stones. Then as I was stalking these birds a flock of dotterels, including females & more males flew in to land not far from me. In the photo below, bottom left you can see the thousands of flies backlit in by the sun.

The Banded Dotterel is endemic to NZ & the most common of our small plovers although they only number around 50,000. They are found on seashores, estuaries and riverbeds and are usually solitary birds but do roost together outside the breeding season.

One of the reasons I had wanted to stop for a few days at Waitaki was so we could have lunch at the award winning Riverstone Kitchen which was just a couple of kilometres away on the main highway. As bad luck would have it, the restaurant closed for a two week break on the afternoon that we arrived. Had we not had to wait the weekend out near Dunedin we’d have been there in time. Darn! Now that lunch will have to wait until be are in the area again.

Riverstone Kitchen (above photo, bottom left) is located within a collection of quirky buildings containing the Riverstone Country Gift Shop which sells some gorgeous home & giftware. The buildings are surrounded by large organic vegetable boxes, green houses, flower gardens, a huge aviary and much, much more. This highly successful enterprise belongs to the entrepreneurial 65 year old Dot Smith, the lady with the shocking pink hair! She describes herself as ‘a woman's dream and a man's nightmare!’.

Spot the imposter…..she has whiskers!

Just recently I listened to a radio interview with Dot and was taken with her enthusiasm and engaging personality. After a lifetime of hard work on their dairy farm this lady and her husband are now very successful dairy farmers with six farms and 4000 dairy cows. After initially setting up the successful Riverstone complex (a son & his wife run the restaurant), it was time to fulfil a childhood dream. Dot is soon to become the queen of her own castle, a magnificent & huge building, set on a man-made island at Riverstone, complete with moat, dungeon, drawbridge, secret tunnels and six towers. I kid you not. Riverstone is well worth a visit just to see what can be achieved when you have a dream (and money).

It’ll be another two years before Dot & her media-shy husband shift into their castle. It will be the only “new home” that they have lived in. Imagine furnishing that, I’m sure the furnishing will cost as much as the building! Puts a new slant on the “Your home is your castle”.

One Woman’s Folly

Just down the road from Riverstone was the very long Waitaki River Bridge, we stopped in a picnic area at the north end of the bridge so I could take a photo in setting sun and David decided to try his luck spinning for trout off a point just below the bridge. Once the sun disappeared it turned very cold & with no sign of any fish we headed home to the warmth of van.

Looking towards the Southern Alps

In the end we stayed on at Waitaki Waters for five nights, it was a large & well maintained camping ground with just a few permanents and the odd overnighter at this time of the year. The weather remained fine and sunny for us, we rested up for a couple of days and also did a tiki-tour inland to Duntroon.

On one of the nights, we met and had drinks with a lovely English couple who had sold up in the UK and were travelling the world for the foreseeable future. They had a motorhome and were exploring NZ for the next few months but didn’t have much of a plan. They were very happy for me to give them some advice on what to see during their next few weeks as they travelled the south of the South Island.

Tailless fantail (piwakawaka) in the campground

Next…The Vanished World