Stewart Island - Beaches and Kiwis

In the morning we walked the road over to Golden Bay

Golden Bay 

 and then  hiked back to town on a trail that followed the shore.  

We saw the usual forest birds and eventually popped out at Ringaringa Road which we followed back into town.

Note penguin crossing sign

We stopped for lattes and a goodie at the Snuggery just down the street from the Backpackers.

Then we headed out of town in the other direction, past Bathing Beach, which sounds inviting but it really wasn't the weather for it.  We crossed a bridge over a creek which made a little estuary where it hit the beach, and here we saw a white-faced heron in the grass.

Then we had great views of a sacred kingfisher but no photos.  Not a lifer as we've seen these in Australia.

And a little shag (Little pied cormorant)

Variable oystercatchers in their non-variable form

A kelp gull.

The heron flew over to the beach side of the road.

Supposedly kiwis do come out during the day on Stewart Island but this is the closest we came so far:

We started up the trail with some beautiful views of tranquil bays.

The beauty of invasive Shasta Daisy

Came across a giant Monterey Cypress (introduced).

But soon we had to turn around because we had to be at the wharf at 6 pm for our Kiwi hunting tour.

When we got to the wharf we saw all these white-capped albatrosses floating about.

We walked all the way to Anker Point to see albatrosses when they were just floating around the wharf!

Our tour caravan showed up, a smaller version of the ferry that brought us to Stewart Island.

We headed off

Our first stop was the Foveaux cormorant colony.  Leo's camera battery had died so we're stuck with our cellphone photos.

Foveaux colony. White stuff is guano.

We were able  to check the Foveaux cormorant off our lists(Lifer!) but really they just looked like cormorants (apparently they have pink feet).

Next was an island full of fur seals.

You can spot a few of them in this picture.

There were lots of the baby seals many of them frolicking in a big pool. It did look more impressive through the binoculars.

Next we visited a pied cormorant colony in Snuggery Cove of Ulva Island (more about that tomorrow).  Fun fact: the Snuggery Cafe we ate at this morning is named after this cove.

Then to a beach full of sea lions lazing about.  We were informed that you can run into them in the forest! Yikes!

An then finally, as dusk fell, we came to Little Glory Beach on Stewart Island where we started our Kiwi hunt. We were issued a torch and instructed to only shine it on the ground not around us.  We were told not to rustle our rain jackets and to be very quiet. We were told if we ran into a sea lion we would have to turn around and go. Yikes! We all got in a line with a guide at each end.  They had infrared scopes for spotting the kiwis in the dark and red flashlights.  Then we crept along the trail.  We walked and walked and walked.  

At one point our guide shocked me by picking a bunch of orchid flowers she came across and letting us smell them.  Oh well, she's Maori, it's her country.  

There was a short view of a kiwi but only a few at the front saw it.  We continued to walk and walk.   We did a hear a male/female call and response which was cool (and funny!).   Finally a kiwi showed up and with the red light on him just bumbled through the bush

Southern Brown Kiwi, Lifer

for about 10 minutes digging around for food.  It walked by the line of us on the trail and came right up to one fellow.  

These photos are screenshots from a video that our seatmate Caro kindly shared with us.  

After our great sighting we moved onto a beach where kiwi are known to forage.  The guides spotted a sea lion far down the beach with their infrared scopes but it was too far away to worry about.  We had no luck with the kiwis and returned to the boat. 

The guides were very happy with our view of the kiwi and everyone was very excited by the experience.  A highlight of our trip and, of course, the Bird of the Day!